MAJADE AND SIERRA/TANGO PRESENT A FILM BY JANET TOBIAS & CLAUS WEHLISCH ELECTRONIC PRESS KIT LOGLINE Pushing Now where are my keys? What’s his name? Remember that password? Everyone wants to be able to remem- ber! Accompanying memory athletes the limits from Germany, Sweden and the USA on the way to the World Memory Championships, MEMORY GAMES tells a visually striking and passionate story of human about memory and how it makes us human. memory SYNOPSIS What if your Without memory we are nothing. Memory makes us human. It’s who we are. Memory Games offers a thrilling insight into the lives of four athletes imagination from the United States, Germany and Mongolia as they compete for the title of World Memory Champion. Their unique approaches to memorizing and recalling was the key mind-boggling amounts of information and their life stories form the basis for a visually stunning and thought-provoking documen- tary that looks at how memory permeates to a limitless every aspect of our lives. By weaving in 3D animations, filmmakers Janet Tobias and Claus Wehlisch explore the athletes’ striking visualization techniques and give a mind? glimpse into a world of seemingly limitless capacity for memorization, one that might well be open to any of us. DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT At the core of MEMORY GAMES is a We felt early on that the use of animation group of unique and diverse characters would be key to telling this story and would from different corners of the world who allow the viewer to jump into their minds all share a common talent: They are able to see the funny, absurd and even someti- to memorize and recall almost anything. mes shocking images they create in their While it is our common understanding ‘memory palaces’ in order to memorize. that only people with special brains, like We worked closely with the athletes and savants, would have an extraordinary Berlin based vfx and animation company ability to remember vast amounts of Lug&Trug to achieve this visual access to information seemingly at will, we realize their minds and showcase the unique, very that the phenomenal feats of memory idiosyncratic memory environments of of our group hint at a wealth of more each of the contestants in a complex and or less dormant potential in any of us. stunning 3D ‘memory sphere’. Furthermore, there is the obvious signifi- cance of memory for all of us: above all, Their technique uses among other wanting to be remembered, preserving things familiar spaces (so called ‘loci’ our best memories, being haunted by the or commonly referred to as ‘memory worst, and the fear of losing our memory palaces’) and startling images to enable over time. Besides, our cultural heritage them to create lasting impressions within and history also heavily depends on the their minds. We see how these striking capacity of humans to remember. images turn into sequences that are a graphic version of a mnemonic rhyme. During the period of development of the MEMORY GAMES depicts these ‘visual documentary, and while getting to know rhymes’ and thus helps unlock the mys- the memory athletes with their almost tery of the super-power memory. superhuman abilities, whose journey we joined for this film, we began to find The road to the world championships in out about their fascinating ways of using Jakarta determines the course of our film, memory to navigate through life. The the animation serves as a path into the humor, wonder, and surprise we felt minds and characters of the participants. needed to be shared with a wider audi- We travelled from the peak of Mount ence beyond the niche-world of memory Everest and the steppes of Mongolia to championships. the gothic dome of Magdeburg and the brain labs of Nijmegen, and experienced Over time we got to know our central first hand how memory does indeed characters intimately as they share their make us human. backgrounds, motivations and individual backstories: why they became involved in memory sport, how they do it, who they are, what drives them and ultimately what memory actually means to them. Yanjaa Wintersoul Johannes Mallow Mongolian-Swedish German 413 IMAGES IN 5 MINUTES 132 DATES IN 5 MINUTES Janet Tobias is an Emmy Award- Claus Wehlisch (*1972 in West Berlin) 145 WORDS IN 5 MINUTES 516 NUMBERS IN 5 MINUTES winning filmmaker. Tobias started is a German film editor and director. her film and television career at CBS’ He trained as a sound engineer at SAE 60 Minutes as Diane Sawyer’s asso- Institute in London. From the late 1990s, ciate producer. After working at the he was mainly active in film editing and networks for a little over a decade, occasionally as a film composer. He she moved to PBS where she created worked as assistant editor and co-editor and executive produced, the Emmy on several high-profile productions, Award-winning PBS program Life 360. including Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide She made her theatrical debut in 2012 Shut and Jonathan Glazer’s Birth (2004). with the documentary feature No Place Since moving to his native Germany in On Earth, which debuted at TIFF. Her 2007 he has edited more than a dozen most recent documentary feature, international film and television produc- Unseen Enemy was released at the tions, including Cloud Atlas, Hector and Copenhagen and Beijing International the Search for Happiness, as well as the Film Festivals and broadcast on five TV Series Babylon Berlin. In 2017/2018, continents in nine languages. Both he co-wrote, co-directed, and edited his films were nominated for Writers Guild first movie, the documentary Memory Awards. Games. It was his third collaboration with Janet Tobias, after editing her Nelson Dellis Simon Reinhard documentary No Place on Earth and American German working with her on Unseen Enemy. 47 NAMES&FACES IN 5 MINUTES 315 WORDS IN 15 MINUTES For his editing work he has won several 146 SPOKEN NUMBERS 17 DECKS OF CARDS IN 30 MINUTES awards, including the Grimme Award for outstanding editing for Babylon Berlin. Ma.ja.de. Filmproduktion Sierra/Tango Productions Established in 1991 by Heino Deckert At Sierra/Tango Productions we believe ma.ja.de is an independent production that story has the power to inspire company, based in Leipzig with an office change. With every film project our in Berlin, producing documentaries and goal is to open a window on a world. fiction for cinema. Many of the films We aspire to tell stories that motivate won national and international awards, audiences to talk, care, and act. We’ve an animated documentary by with among them Cannes Fipresci award produced over 20 documentaries on Janet Tobias & Claus Wehlisch Yanjaa Wintersoul winner In The Fog by Sergei Loznitsa and subjects as diverse as the Holocaust, the Nelson Dellis Oscar nominated Rabbit A La Berlin. The American criminal justice system, advan- world premiere Johannes Mallow company has been involved in more than ces in neurosurgery, and what it means DOC NYC 2019 Simon Reinhard 100 collaborations with directors such as to be a teenager in the 21st century. Victor Kossakovsky and Pirjo Honkasalo. Sierra/Tango’s most recent theatrical a co-production between director feature, Memory Games is currently Germany, USA and Sweden Janet Tobias & Claus Wehlisch Heino produced Human Flow a film by touring the festival circuit. The company’s 86 min, Color, 2K the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, which breakout feature film, No Place On Earth, producer premiered in Venice 2017. the story of the longest uninterrupted languages Ma.ja.de. Filmproduktion: Heino Deckert, survival underground, debuted at the English, German, Swedish, Mongolian Tina Börner, Zsofi Lili Kovacs In 2018 ma.ja.de produced together with Toronto Film Festival and was released with English subtitles Sierra Tango: Janet Tobias, Roger Lopez Participant Media the new film of Victor in the US by Magnolia Pictures, and in Kossakowsky Aquarela opened in Venice Germany by Senator. world sales co-producer and finished Sergei Loznitsa Donbass Deckert Distribution Blinker Filmproduktion: Meike Martens which premiered in Cannes 2018 and mail: [email protected] Momento Film: David Herdies, won the award for best director of the Un phone: +49 341 215 66 38 Michael Krotkiewski Certain Regard competition. cinematographer Zac Nicholson animation supervisor Stefan Kessner COMING original music SOON TO John Piscitello editor NETFLIX* Claus Wehlisch sound designer Markus Krohn *except in Germany, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Poland, Scandinavia and Finland INTERNATIONAL SALES BY DECKERT DISTRIBUTION.