Tom Gramenz Swen Gippa a Film by Stéphane Riethauser

Tom Gramenz Swen Gippa A film by Stéphane Riethauser

LAMBDA PROD presents • in coproduction with RTS – Swiss Radio Television With the support of Swiss Federal Office of Culture, department of home affairs • CITY OF GENEVA, DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AND SPORTS Regio Films Fund • MIGROS CULTURE PERCENTAGE • DIALOGAI, Geneva TOM GRAMENZ • SWEN GIPPA • “PRORA” • a film by Stéphane Riethauser Associate producer Isabelle Gattiker Director of photography Marcus Winterbauer Sound Carlos Ibañez Díaz First assistant director Marie-Catherine Theiler Editing Barbara Toennieshen, BFS, Véronique Rotelli Camera assistant Nicolas Delaroche Costumes & Props Ingrid Buhrmann Make-up & Special effects Tanja Maria Koller Location manager Petra Wild Sound design Carlos Ibañez Díaz Music David Perrenoud, Benoît Mayer Sound mix Martin Stricker

"Riethauser's provocation (there will be blood) connects the dots between the Weimar era and today's party- down Euro youth. Director of photography Marcus Winterbauer lenses this intimate epic with aerial shots interspersed with languorous semi-nudity." The Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco

"This director is gifted ! A successful first film. Breathtaking pictures, a subtle script, a well-balanced rhythm, two charming actors. And Prora, this monstrous former Nazi holiday center, a character on its own. This fascinating and disgusting location on the Baltic seashore was necessary to depict the identities and unveil the human feelings. A coming of age tale that shakes up your convictions." Ouest France

15 awards and 120 official festival selections worldwide 2012-2013

EUROPE Nuit du Court Métrage Lausanne QFest Houston Bruxelles Short Film Festival Everybody’s Perfect, Geneva Southwest GLFF Albuquerque Festival Européen du Film Court Brest Festival CourToujours, Geneva ImageOut Rochester NY Festival du Cinéma Européen Essonne Emmentaler Filmtage, Switzerland Eau Queer Festival Wisconsin Festival du Film Court Lille Identities Queer Festival, Vienna Milwaukee LGBT Film Festival Festival Silhouette Paris Oslo GLBT Festival North Carolina GLFF Durham Festival Intl du Film d’Aubagne Mix Copenhagen QFest Asheville, NC Festival Chéries-Chéris Paris Lesbigai Festival, Madrid Santa Barbara Outrageous Festival Festival C’est Trop Court Nice Bilbao Zinegoak International Festival San Diego FilmOut Festival In&Out, Nice ELEGEBETE Fest Malaga, Spain CMG Festival West Hollywood Vues d’en face, Grenoble Cinhomo Valladolid, Spain Ogunquit Festival, Maine Festival Désirs Désirs Tours Torino GLBT Festival Out Film Festival, Connecticut Face à Face, Saint-Etienne Mix Milano Outflix Memphis, Tennessee Du grain à Démoudre, Le Havre Florence Queer Festival Toronto Inside Out Cinémarges, Bordeaux Overlook Film Festival Ligure, Italy CFC Toronto W-wide Short Film Fest Holebi Film Festival, Belgien Sardinian Queer Film Festival, Italy Montreal Image+Nation Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival Sicilian Queer Film Festival, Italy Vues Parallèles, Québéc London BFI L&G Film Festival Lago Film Festival, Italy Non Violence Film Festival, Canada Portobello Film Festival, London Pentedatillo Short Festival, Italy Puerto Rico Queer Film Fest Gaze Dublin Outview Athens GLBT Film Festival Outfest Santo Domingo, Dom. Rep. Iris Prize Festival Cardiff, Wales Thessaloniki LGBT Film Festival Mix Brasil, Sao Paulo Hamburg Intl Queer Film Festival Budapest Shorts Busho Rio Gay Film Festival Flensburger Kurzfilmtage Ostrava Kamera Oko Festival Mix México Liebe Filme Festival, Germany Mezipatra Film Festival Prag Merlinka Intl Queer Festival Belgrade Berlin Xposed Queer Intl Film Festival AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST, ASIA International Film Awards Berlin Ljubljana LGBT Bielefelder Schwule Filmtage Vilnius International Short Fest Durban Gay & Lesbian Festival Karlsruhe Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Wiz-Art Intl Festival, Lviv, Ukraine Tel-Aviv LGBT Film Festival Hannover Perlen Festival International Izmir Short Film Festival GSC Filmfest im Allgäu NORTH & SOUTH AMERICA Teen Intl Short Festival Istanbul Rostock Queer Fest Palm Springs International Short Fest Jaipur International Film Festival, India FilmKunstFest MV Schwerin Hollyshorts Film Festival Los Angeles Calcutta GLBT Film Festival, India Weiterstadt Queer Woche Outfest Los Angeles Kashish Mumbai Queer Festival Queer Film festival Esslingen New York City Short Film Festival Hong Kong InDpanda Film Festival Leipzig Prager Frühling NewFest, New York City Q! Film Festival Djakarta, Indonesia Gay Film Nacht Germany New York City Intl Film Festival Melbourne Queer Film Festival Schwule Filmwoche Freiburg Frameline San Francisco Melbourne Little Queer Festival Oldenburg Rollenwechsel Festival San Francisco Intl Shorts Brisbane Queer Film Festival Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur Tiburon International Film Festival Outtakes New Zealand Solothurner Filmtage QFest Philadelphia Pink Apple International Festival Zürich Durango Independent Film Festival Queersicht Festival Bern Boston LGBT Luststreifen Basel Queer Festival Seattle Queer Film Festival

www.prora-themovie.com PITCH

Prora, on the Baltic Sea. Mysterious, endless. In this deserted former Nazi holiday camp and communist military complex, teenagers Jan and Matthieu embark on an adventure that confronts their identities and puts their friendship at risk.

www.prora-themovie.com SYNOPSIS

Prora, Rügen Island, Baltic Sea. A deserted Nazi holiday camp and communist military complex - one of Germany's largest and most bizarre structures. Jan, 17, a rather timid German teenager, spends his summer holidays with his friend Matthieu, 18, a French self- proclaimed macho womanizer. After a frustrating night in the local club, the two boys decide to hang out on the beach at sunrise. What starts as an innocent game soon develops into an ambiguous confrontation, when Matthieu takes his friend along into the abandoned building, and provokes him by making fun of Germany’s past. After a chase through Prora’s endless hallways, Jan provokes Matthieu in return by suddenly kissing him on the lips. The two friends unexpectedly embark on an erotic game that puts their friendship at risk. Overwhelmed by their feelings, they try to escape, but they get lost in Prora’s labyrinthine series of rooms and walkways. Desperate, tortured, a fight breaks out that leaves Jan alone and wounded. A few days later, Jan and Matthieu meet again on the beach. Will they become friends again before they part?

A journey of self-exploration, an odyssey of male adolescence, Prora is a thrilling, tender story about love and friendship.

www.prora-themovie.com PRORA

At a staggering 4,5 km in length, Prora is a former holiday camp built from 1936 to 1939 by the Nazis. The structure is located on the Island of Rügen, just north of the German mainland in the Baltic Sea. Designed by Hitler-appointed architect Clemens Klotz, this massive outlay of concrete was meant to host 20,000 people for a strictly controlled vacation. But war interrupted construction in 1939. The „Colossus of Rügen Island“ was used as a military hospital and a refugee camp, before the Red Army took it over in 1945. Communist East Germany turned it into a military base. For almost 40 years, Prora served as a training camp for soldiers and officers. It was abandoned shortly after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

Prora (Latin), πρῷρα (Greek): the prow, the bow of a ship or a vessel.

www.prora-themovie.com DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I was working on a script about two boys confronting their identities when one day I read a newspaper article about Prora. I immediately thought it would be the perfect setting to stage my story. Its endless dimensions allowed unusual cinematic possibilities and its massively historic and oppressive architecture offered many symbolic perspectives. I also liked the name “Prora”, which in Latin and Greek means the prow of a ship. It matched my desire to tell the story of the two friends Jan and Matthieu, one German and the other French. Despite opposite backgrounds and personalities, Jan and Matthieu gradually feel attracted to each other until they unexpectedly have sex for the first time. But they have trouble coming to terms with it: their physical and emotional outburst blows up their cultural patterns, blurs their relationship and challenges their masculinity. Nonetheless, their friendship prevails. The experience deepens their understanding of their own identities. Whether gay or straight, Jan and Matthieu will never forget this adventure, which opens new horizons and allows them to become men. I see Prora’s labyrinthine structure as a third lead character in the story. A vestige of the past, a witness of failed fascist and communist utopias, the complex reveals the tension between the boys and provides a stark contrast with the sensuous beauty of the adjacent Baltic Sea. A statement on the perils of normative heterosexism, Prora underscores the poisonous inflexibility of Jan and Matthieu’s inherited social landscape. Given the building’s extraordinary suggestive power, I also built in solitary time for both Jan and Matthieu in and around the structure. Over the course of the film, the monstrosity renders the boys at once more fragile, more resilient and more human. Only on the beach, wordless and elemental, are they able to reconcile. A journey of self-exploration, a tale of male adolescence, a parabolic confrontation between nature and culture, Prora is a simple, tender story about love and friendship. Stéphane Riethauser

www.prora-themovie.com STEPHANE RIETHAUSER Writer, Director, Producer

Stéphane Riethauser was born in 1972 in Geneva, Switzerland. He holds a law degree from the University of Geneva. Over the years, he has been working as a teacher, gay activist, photographer, editor, journalist and translator – before becoming a television director. He is the author of “A visage découvert”, a photography book about coming out (Ed. Slatkine, 2000), and has created numerous documentaries and reports for Swiss Radio Television RTS (2003-2008). He also produced and co-directed documentary feature “Le Temps Suspendu” on painter Marius Borgeaud (Lambda Prod, 2007). Since 2009, Stéphane Riethauser has lived and worked as an independent filmmaker in Berlin. “Prora” is his first fiction short film.

For full bio and filmography: www.riethauser.com / www.lambda-prod.ch

Contact: [email protected]

www.prora-themovie.com TOM GRAMENZ

Tom Gramenz, born 1991 in Wiesbaden, Germany, started his acting career at the age of 15. His first film is a short film called “Fluke”. Since then, he has been seen in many TV shows for major German broad- casters such as RTL, ZDF and Nick. Tom has also acted in several theatre projects in Wiesbaden and Mainz. Recently, he starred in “Beach Boy” (short by Hannes Hirsch, GER, 2010) and in the TV series “Soko Köln” and “Stolberg”.

SWEN GIPPA

Swen Gippa, born 1988, is a promising new talent from Montreux, Switzerland, currently living in Paris. Swen graduated in 2009 from the prestigious Cours Florent in Paris before joining Acting International, a film, theatre and TV school, for an extra year. He has already been seen in theatre in Paris and Lyon and in two films, “Noirs peupliers” (2009) by Warren Vrecord and “On y danse” (2010) by Franck Llopis and Virginie Bordes. Swen is also a talented sportsman and plays piano and classical guitar. www.prora-themovie.com PRODUCTION CREW

Production Lambda Prod – Stéphane Riethauser Coproduction Swiss Radio Television RTS With the support of Swiss Federal Office of Culture – Federal Department of Home Affairs City of Geneva, Department of Culture and Sports Regio Films Fund, with the Loterie Romande, the City & the Canton of Geneva Migros Culture Percentage Dialogai, Geneva

Lead Actor (Jan) Tom Gramenz Lead Actor (Matthieu) Swen Gippa

Writer, Director, Producer Stéphane Riethauser Associate Producer Isabelle Gattiker Director of Photography Marcus Winterbauer Sound Carlos Ibañez Diaz 1st Asst. Director Marie-Catherine Theiler Camera Assistant Nicolas Delaroche Costume & Props Ingrid Buhrmann Make-Up & SFX Tanja Maria Koller Location Manager Petra Wild Aerial Photography Holger Fleig & Volker Tittel, BVK Editing Barbara Toennieshen, BFS Véronique Rotelli Music composer David Perrenoud Benoît Mayer Sound Design Carlos Ibañez Diaz Sound Mix Martin Stricker

Distribution GER / CH / AUT Edition Salzgeber, Berlin – [email protected] Distribution WORLD Lambda Prod – [email protected] www.prora-themovie.com TECHNICAL DATA

Production year 2012 Production country Switzerland Length 23 min. Shooting format HD Video 16:9 Color – 1:78 Available screening formats DCP PAL HDCAM PAL or NTSC DIGIBETA PAL BETA SP PAL DVD region 0, 1, all MEDIA FILE .MOV Original language German and French Subtitles English (available in French & German also)