Presskit HELL

presents

Directed by Tim Fehlbaum

Starring Hannah Herzsprung, Lars Eidinger, Stipe Erceg, Lisa Vicari, Angela Winkler

Executive Producer Roland Emmerich

Produced by Thomas Wöbke, Gabriele M. Walther, Caligari Film- und Fernsehproduktion in coproduction with Ruth Waldburger, Vega Film and Dr. Stefan Gärtner, SevenPictures Film

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TECHNICAL DETAILS Germany 2011 Running time: 86 min Format: 35mm, 1:2,35, Dolby Digital 5.1

For further information: Beta Cinema Press, Dorothee Stoewahse, Tel: + 49 89 67 34 69 15, Mobile: + 49 170 63 84 627 [email protected] , www.betacinema.com . Pictures and filmclips available on ftp.betafilm.com , username: ftppress01, password: 8uV7xG3tB

CAST Marie Hannah Herzsprung Phillip Lars Eidinger Tom Stipe Erceg Leonie Lisa Vicari The Farmer Angela Winkler

CREW Director Tim Fehlbaum Script Tim Fehlbaum, Thomas Wöbke, Oliver Kahl Producer Thomas Wöbke, Gabriele M. Walther Executive Producer Roland Emmerich Co-Producer Ruth Waldburger Camera Markus Förderer; Tim Fehlbaum Casting An Dorthe Braker Setdesign Heike Lange Costumes Leonie Leuenberger Editing Andreas Menn Music Lorenz Dangel

SHORT SYNOPSIS

It was once the source of life, light, and warmth. But now the sun has turned the entire world into baked and barren wasteland. Forests are scorched. Animal carcasses line the roads. Even the nights are dazzling bright. Marie, her little sister Leonie and Phillip are heading for the mountains in a car with covered windows. Rumor has it there is still water there. Along the way they run into Tom, a first-rate mechanic who becomes indispensible. But can they trust him? Tension grows in the small group. As if things weren’t bad enough, they are lured into an ambush. Their real battle for survival begins …

PRESS NOTES

HELL is an atmospheric and tense thriller that lets the audience physically feel the psychological game with humanity's primal fears by using intense images and a penetrating storytelling method. Newcomer director Tim Fehlbaum, who won this year's Young German Cinema Award for Best Director at the Munich Film Festival, creates a realism the audience can't escape. Based on the strength of his short films ("Für Julian" won the renowned Shocking Shorts Award), Tim Fehlbaum is now making his cinematic debut with the feature film HELL.

With Hannah Herzsprung ("Four Minutes," "The Baader Meinhof-Complex"), who delivers an impressive performance as the tender and yet strong Marie, the young and talented actress Lisa Vicari ("Hanni & Nanni") as the rebellious sister, Lars Eidinger ("Everyone Else") as the cowardly boyfriend, Stipe Erceg ("The Edukators") as the shady lone wolf, and the unstoppable Angela Winkler ("The Tin Drum"), Tim Fehlbaum has assembled a first-class cast. Raw, gripping, and visually impressive, HELL is a riveting story about a young woman who, in order to rescue her sister, is drawn into even more perilous pitfalls – more than she ever could have imagined.

HELL was produced by Thomas Wöbke and Gabriele M. Walther (Caligari Film und Fernsehproduktions GmbH); co-producers are Ruth Waldburger (Vega Film AG) and Stefan Gärtner (SevenPictures Film). Executive producer is Roland Emmerich, who from the beginning was very enthusiastic about Fehlbaum's vision.

LONG SYNOPSIS

Beyond the deserted cities, where any chance of survival evaporates in the scorching heat and civilization is only a word, there is supposedly salvation. In the mountains. Difficult to reach. But word is out that there are clouds in the mountains, and only there, and rain falls from these clouds. Some water, at least. As precious as gold. Because not one blade of grass grows on earth anymore, and famine has wiped out most of the population after years ago the sun stopped nourishing life and started to relentlessly burn.

In a beat-up old station wagon, which they have covered with observation slits and makeshift shields to ward off the scorching heat, Marie (Hannah Herzsprung) and her young sister, Leonie (Lisa Vicari), along with Marie's boyfriend Phillip (Lars Eidinger), make their way to a better future. Two adults and a teen in an unequal duel against nature. On top of everything, everybody's nerves are shattered after they had to bury their friends and families. They didn't choose to be thrown together like this. They had no other choice.

After stopping at a deserted gas station to search for gas or some provisions, stumbling out of their car into the midday sun wearing hoods and masks like vampires, they soon have the uneasy feeling someone's watching them. And then they catch an emaciated stranger as he tries to steal their provisions, and for several dramatic moments the conflict threatens to escalate. But Phillip makes a strategic pact with the mysterious stranger called Tom (Stipe Erceg), although Marie and her frightened sister are very reluctant about this. Tom doesn't want to tell them anything about his past, but he can repair cars and seems to be experienced in the battle against the apocalypse.

After a long drive, they are forced to stop when an antenna pole blocks the road in the middle of the barren doomsday landscape in Central Europe. Then they discover a wrecked car at the foot of an embankment. The accident seems to be recent and there may be useful items inside they could salvage. But when the men start to strip the car and Marie is distracted briefly, several masked individuals jump into the station wagon and drive away – and kidnap young Leonie.

Subsequently, Tom turns out to be much more courageous and more reliable than Phillip when it comes to rescuing Leonie. He locates the position of the primitive enemy and works out a plan with Marie for a surprise attack. But during the rescue attempt at night in an eerie forest of bare, coal- black trees with not even one single green leaf, they tremendously underestimate the number and relentlessness of their brutal opponents.

This time Tom is also captured and Phillip is seriously injured; Phillip is too concerned with saving his own skin to be of much help. Now Marie is forced to face two threatening certainties. For one thing, she will be all alone when she has to go up against the superiority of the kidnappers, who are on familiar territory and know every hiding place to escape the deadly sunlight. And for another, she has to prepare herself for the fate that may await her – the gang is obviously interested in more than just provisions.

But just as she despairs in the face of the hopelessness of her situation, she runs into an old woman farmer who is familiar with the terrain and has turned her farm into a sequestered hideout. To Marie she appears to be an oasis in the vast doomsday wasteland. Grateful, Marie regains her energy and tries to pull herself together – until she realizes in a panic that she has landed in the kidnappers' headquarters, and the answer to all of her questions lurks in the murky darkness of the cellar ...

PRODUCTION NOTES

Strictly speaking, Tim Fehlbaum has been working on HELL ever since he studied at the film and television academy HFF in Munich; he made the zombie film "Am Flaucher" as an exercise film, which antedates the subject matter and atmosphere of HELL to a certain extent. "Am Flaucher" was screened in 2006 at the film festival in Hof, Germany, where the Munich film producer Thomas Wöbke saw it. Wöbke, who produced popular and critical successes such as "23," "Crazy,” "Anatomy" and "Summer Storm" with his former colleague Jakob Claussen, thought Fehlbaum's exercise was very convincing. "We have in him a filmmaker," says Wöbke, "who doesn't create suspense with elaborate special effects, but rather with somber realism."

Together with Fehlbaum's fellow student Oliver Kahl, who came to the project as co-screenwriter, Fehlbaum and Wöbke started working on the first draft of the screenplay, which was based on a developed treatment. "Originally, I wanted to make a classic genre film with zombies," recalls Fehlbaum, "and thanks to Thomas Wöbke, who insisted on an original story, in the end we came up with the idea about the sun." However, there isn't a realistic threat that Northern Europe will turn into a deadly furnace in the future – fortunately, various climate experts the filmmakers consulted said HELL's ghastly scenario would never occur.

The scenario is the starting point of this doomsday thriller, which touches on primitive fears and paints the near future as a step back into the past, where the accomplishments of civilization are brutally replaced by raw barbarism. "The premise of HELL is a fantasy," explains Fehlbaum, "a 'what- 5

would-happen-if' game. We wanted to tell the story exclusively from the perspective of a normal young woman, who, in the face of catastrophe, is confronted by essential survival issues. The timeframe of the story is not more than three days. We wanted to only touch on the 'apocalypse' theme in a small excerpt, which is, however, a greater challenge than our lead character has ever faced before. A short, personal look at a post-apocalyptic world."

"I think very strongly in images," explains Fehlbaum, "and I decided early on to not shoot in a studio in favor of an authenticity you can feel, and to work with computer-generated special effects as little as possible. Originally, there were fifty visual effects planned – but in the end, we only needed four, because we could get the desired effects while shooting with technical solutions. As it turned out, the scenario with the sun was a blessing, because we could make inappropriate image elements, such as, for example, green trees, disappear by using flare."

A central setting in HELL is a lifeless, spooky forest. The team found a forest that had been infested and devastated by bark beetles not far from the small Bavarian town of Eggenfelden, and all they had to do was paint the tree trunks black with an environmental-friendly chalk spray to create the illusion of a doomsday landscape. The HELL team was shooting in that area for about one third of the 48 days in the shooting schedule, including at a farm and in the tunnel of an abandoned railroad track. Additional scenes were shot in a large forest on the island of Corsica that was ravaged by a disastrous blaze in the summer of 2009.

Tim Fehlbaum on casting the film: "For me as the director, it was a huge bonus to be able to work with actors of this class with my debut film. I like to work in a very technical way, and with these actors in front of the camera I could concentrate even more on the visual realization of the material."

Hannah Herzsprung ("Four Minutes") plays the lead role of the reluctant heroine Marie – a role that follows in the footsteps of Hollywood heroines such as Sigourney Weaver and Jodie Foster, especially when her character has to mobilize all of her mental and physical energies to spite deadly threats regardless of the dangerous and life-threatening mistakes of the two men at her side. "It's rare that you get such screenplays on your desk," says the actress enthusiastically, "which is true for the genre as well as for the gripping script, where you can't read fast enough to find out what the next twist is. What was also absolutely appealing was to play a very physical role with action elements. In the beginning, Marie is a more or less passive character who frightens easily – but when her sister's life is in danger, she reaches beyond herself and confronts her mortal fears, without having to ever question her responsibility for her beloved sister." On the choice of his lead actress, Fehlbaum says, "I had seen her in the film 'Four Minutes’ and was so thrilled that I had Hannah in mind while I wrote the script. She transformed into the character of Marie right in front of our eyes and maintained this level of concentration until the last shot was in the can."

Star director Emmerich ("2012"), an old friend of Gabriele Walther and Thomas Wöbke, was always there, during every step of the development process and behind the scenes. As executive producer of HELL and a specialist for post-civilization material, Emmerich was an advisor to the production. For example, he anticipated a high budget for artificial dust, which proved to be a smart premonition when they needed to create the dried out steppe. And then he presented arguments for shooting in English and for the global market, which Fehlbaum resisted in order to give his debut feature film an unmistakable identity. "Roland had fantastic ideas, whether they involved details or the overall view," says Tim Fehlbaum, "but he always made it clear to me that the final decisions were all mine."

HELL, which will be released in Germany on 22 September 2011, is the first German film production of Paramount Pictures Germany. Managing director Sven Sturm says, "We're happy to be the first local production of Paramount in Germany with such experienced partners as Gabriele M. Walther and Thomas Wöbke and also to work with the young, talented director Tim Fehlbaum and be part of this extraordinary story. Of course it's especially fantastic that the filmmakers have Roland Emmerich, a genuine expert, at their side."

CAST

Hannah Herzsprung (Marie)

Hannah Herzsprung embodies in Tim Fehlbaum's claustrophobic thriller HELL the pragmatic Marie, who is driven to and beyond her thresholds of pain over and over again while she searches for a better future. Herzsprung follows in the footsteps of Hollywood heroines such as Sigourney Weaver and Jodie Foster when her character has to mobilize all of her psychological and physical resources to battle bizarre threats regardless of the life-threatening mistakes that the two men at her side make.

A native of Hamburg and born on 7 September 1981, at the beginning of her career Hannah Herzsprung proved her diversity in television series and films before she had her screen debut in Chris Kraus' award-winning drama "Four Minutes" (2006). With her intense portrayals – as a talented pianist in prison in "Four Minutes," or as "Florina" in Alain Gsponer's comedy "Life Actually" (2006) – Hannah Herzsprung is convincing to both audiences and critics. In 2007 she received the Bavarian Film Award for her role in "Four Minutes" and in 2006 the "Best Newcomer Actress." That same year she was also nominated twice for the German Film Award: as "Best Actress" for "Four Minutes" and as "Best Supporting Actress" for "Life Actually." For the latter film, she received the most important German film award as well the Grimme Prize in 2009. Audiences saw this Berlinale 2008 Shooting Star recently in movie theaters as the terrorist Susanne Albrecht in "The Baader Meinhof- Complex" (2008); in Stephen Daldry's "The Reader" (2008); with Daniel Brühl in "My Words, My Love – My Lies" (2009); and as the "novice" in Margarethe von Trotta's "Vision" (2009). This role earned her another nomination for the German Film Award in 2010. In 2010 there followed, among other productions, Juraj Herz' "Habermann’s Mill" and Friedemann Fromm's celebrated TV series "Weissensee," for which Hannah Herzsprung was awarded the Bambi 2010 as "Best German Actress."

Lars Eidinger (Phillip)

Lars Eidinger plays the role of the frequently overwhelmed Phillip in HELL, who only seems to able to be accept his responsibility for protecting his girlfriend and her young sister Leonie when his own life isn't in danger. But when this strategic alliance leads them right into a treacherous trap, his fluctuation between valor and the will to survive is put to a final test ...

Lars Eidinger was born on 21 January 1976 in Berlin, and he studied his profession in the last half of the 1990s at the renowned acting school "Ernst Busch" in Berlin. During his studies, he acted on the stages of the Deutsches Theater before he became a member of the Berliner Schaubühne ensemble in 1999, where since then he has acted in the productions of "Hamlet," "Demons," "A Midsummer 7

Night's Dream," "A Streetcar Named Desire," and "The Misanthrope." In 2008 he made his debut as a theater director at the Schaubühnenstudio with a production of "The Robbers."

After several guest appearances on television and in small film roles, Eidinger had his screen debut in 2007 in Stephan Geene's drama "After Effect," and played his breakthrough lead role in 2009 in the film "Torpedo" (directed by Helene Hegemann, 2008), which won an award at the Max Ophüls Festival. There followed a role alongside Birgit Minichmayr in Maren Ades' drama "Everyone Else" (2009), which won two jury awards at the Berlinale and in 2010 was awarded the German Film Award. Since shooting wrapped for HELL, this actor was in three other film productions: Christoph Stark's "Tabu – Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden"; Hendrik Handloegten's "Summer Window "; and "Code Blue" (directed by Urszula Antoniak), which was presented at the Cannes film festival. Eidinger is married to opera singer Ulrike Eidinger and the father of a daughter.

Stipe Erceg (Tom)

Rounding out the quartet of involuntary refugees from civilization is the star of "The Edukators," Stipe Erceg, who plays the role of Tom, the taciturn stranger. A mysterious loner, his traveling companions have a hard time seeing through him in the beginning, and he soon has to prove in extreme situations whether he will be a help to them on their way to a better future, or a fatal handicap.

Erceg was born on 30 October 1974 in the Croatian city of Split, and he and his family moved to Germany when he was four years old. Between 1996 and 2000, he studied acting at the European Theater Institute in Berlin and attended classes at the Grotowski Center in Pontedera, Italy. After receiving the First Steps Award for his work in the short film "Der Typ" (2003), in 2004 Erceg had his breakthrough role alongside Daniel Brühl and Julia Jentsch in Hans Weingartner's "The Edukators." For his performances in "The Edukators" and in Tilman Zens' "Don’t Look For Me" (2004) he received the German Film Sponsorship Award, and also the Max Ophüls Award as Best Newcomer Actor for his performance in Nadya Derado's "Yugotrip" (2004).

In recent years, this charismatic actor could be seen in, among other films, Uli Edel's "The Baader Meinhof-Complex" (2008); Matthias Ehmcke's "Phantom Pain" (2009) and in Wolfgang Murnberger's "The Bone Man" (2009). In addition, he delivered a convincing performance recently in the international production "Unknown " (2010) at the side of Liam Neeson and Diane Kruger. Erceg lives with his wife and two children in Berlin.

Angela Winkler (Elisabeth, the farmer)

In HELL Angela Winkler plays the role of a resolute, matriarchal country woman who in post- apocalyptical circumstances battles to ensure her family and her farm survive.

Winkler was born on 22 January 1944 in the city of Templin in Brandenburg, Germany, and she studied acting in Munich. After she made her cinematic debut in Peter Fleischmann's "Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern" (1969), she acted in Volker Schlöndorff's famous film adaptation of the Böll novel "The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum" (1975), for which she received the Film Ribbon in Gold as Best Actress at the German Film Awards. Shortly thereafter, she worked alongside of Bruno Ganz in 8

Reinhard Hauff's "Knife in the Head" (1978), and she played the role of little Oskar Matzerath's mother in Schlöndorff's masterpiece "The Tin Drum" (1979). Among the most important films in her impressive career are her performances in Hans W. Geißendörfer's film "Edith’s Diary"; Andrzej Wajda's "Danton" (1983); at the side of Armin Müller-Stahl in "Bronstein’s Children" (1991); Michael Haneke's "Benny‘s Video"; and most recently Tom Tykwer's "Three" (2010).

CREW

Tim Fehlbaum – director, screenwriter

Tim Fehlbaum was born in 1982 in Basel, Switzerland, and studied directing from 2002 to 2009 at the film and television academy HFF in Munich. He made various short films there, including "Für Julian," which won First Prize in 2004 at the Shocking Shorts Awards. In addition, he has directed music videos, for example, for the Munich band "Blumentopf." Fehlbaum also worked as a cameraman on the documentary films "Kinder der Schlafviertel" (2005) and "My American Cousin" (2008).

"Am Flaucher," a low budget zombie short film, was designed to be a type of exercise for HELL. Tim Fehlbaum wanted to demonstrate how he could create the style and atmosphere of HELL in small dimensions. "Am Flaucher" brought Fehlbaum to the attention of producer Thomas Wöbke. They wrote the screenplay to HELL together with Tim's fellow student Oliver Kahl.

Thomas Wöbke – producer, screenwriter

HELL is Thomas Wöbke's first project as a film producer after he ended his long-term production partnership with his colleagues Jakob Claussen and Uli Putz. Thomas Wöbke was so enthusiastic about Tim Fehlbaum's short films that he wanted to develop the project HELL together with the young director from the start and to produce the film. To finance and produce HELL, Thomas Wöbke teamed up with the film producer Gabriele M. Walther of CALIGARI Film- and Fernsehproduktion. Roland Emmerich, their mutual acquaintance and friend of many years, was signed on as executive producer.

The production company Claussen und Wöbke had their first successes with debut films such as "After Five in the Forest Primeval " by Hans-Christian Schmid and Caroline Link's "Beyond Silence" (both were released in 1996). There followed other films directed by Schmid: "23" with August Diehl (1999); the film adaptation of the novel "Crazy" (2000) with Robert Stadlober and Tom Schilling; and "Distant Lights" (2003). Additional productions were the cinema films "Anatomy I and II"; "Play It Loud!" (2002); and in 2004 "Summer Storm," a film by the director Marco Kreuzpaintner.

Thomas Wöbke's last film produced together with the production company Claussen+Wöbke+Putz Filmproduktion, which he co-founded in 1992, was the film adaptation of " Krabat and the Legend of the Satanic Mill" in 2008, the classic youth novel by Otfried Preußler, featuring David Kross and Daniel Brühl in the lead roles.

Gabriele M. Walther – producer

HELL producer Gabriele M. Walther studied with Roland Emmerich at the film and television academy HFF in Munich. During this period, she was a producer of his first cinema film, "The Noah’s Ark Principle" (1984). She has worked with directors such as Robert Dornhelm and Ulrich Edel. In the 1990s, Gabriele Walther worked as a partner of Sony Columbia Tristar to establish the sitcom format in Germany and she played an active role in helping to achieve the sitcom's breakthrough in Germany as a developer of new television programs. In 2002, "Hausmeister Krause" with Tom Gerhardt was awarded the German Comedy Award as the most successful sitcom with over 80 episodes. Walther was a producer of, among other productions, the successful Tom Gerhardt film comedy "Siegfried" (2005). In addition to numerous television productions, Gabriele Walther and her production company Caligari Film are one of the leaders in the animation segment.

Among her biggest cinema successes of the last ten years are the films "Letters from Felix" (2005); "Felix – Der Hase and die verflixte Zeitmaschine" (2006); "Moonbeam Bear and His Friends" (2008); and most recently "Princess Lillifee" (2009).

The second cinema film with this popular character is "Prinzessin Lillifee and the Unicorn," which will be released in Germany on 1 September 2011. 2012 will see the release of the adventures of "Ritter Rost," 3-D film entertainment for the entire family.

In 2007, Gabriele Walther was named Bavarian Entrepreneur of the Year. She has been a member of the joint board of the German Producers Alliance since 2009. www.caligari-film.de

Roland Emmerich – executive producer

Although star director Roland Emmerich was not physically involved in the production of HELL due to his own directing duties on "Anonymous" in Berlin, he provided valuable suggestions during the development and post-production phases, in order to make a German genre into material that could also compete on the international market.

Emmerich was born on 10 November 1955 in Stuttgart, and he made a name for himself – and not just in Germany – with "Noah’s Ark Principle " in 1984 and "Joey" in 1985 before his career literally exploded in Hollywood with the global success of "Independence Day" (1996). He also directed the films "Godzilla" (1998); "The Patriot" (2000); "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004); "10,000 B.C." (2008); and most recently "2012" (2009).

Roland Emmerich's latest work as a director, "Anonymous," will be released in November 2011 in Germany.

Ruth Waldburger – coproducer

Ruth Waldburger is the owner and managing director of Vega Film AG and the distributor Vega Distribution AG with headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. Vega Film was founded in 1988. On the 10

one hand, the company stands for remarkable international coproductions with films by Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Silvio Soldini, Gianni Amelio and popular successes such as "The Chorus" by Christophe Barratier, and on the other hand for numerous Swiss films, including the successful comedies "Katzendiebe,” Comedian," and "Crisis in Havanna."

In addition, Ruth Waldburger has also produced for television, for example, the 26-part television series "Die Direktorin." Many of the films produced by Ruth Waldburger have received awards, including "Johnny Suede" with Brad Pitt by Tom DiCillo, which received the Golden Leopard at the film festival in Locarno in 1991; "Same Old Song" by Alain Resnais (Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1998, among other awards); and "Our Music" by Jean-Luc Godard (Film Festival San Sebastian, Grand Prix FIPRESCI, "Best film of the year 2004").

In 2003, Ruth Waldburger was awarded the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize at the Locarno Film Festival for her work as a producer.

BETA CINEMA (world sales agent)

Beta Cinema, the theatrical division of Beta Film has established itself as a "boutique-operation" for independent feature films with strong theatrical potential. Beta Cinema's philosophy is to keep its selective acquisition policy of 10 to 15 titles per year in order to fully develop the theatrical potential of each title according to its individual character. Beta Cinema’s portfolio includes outstanding productions like "Viva Riva", which won 6 African Academy Awards 2011; "Black Bread", big winner at the Spanish Goya Awards 2011; German Film Award Winners "Vincent Wants to Sea" (2011), "Almanya" (2011) and "John Rabe" (2009); Berlin 2011 out of competition entry "My Best Enemy"; Cannes 2008 Jury Prize-winning "Il Divo"; Academy Award 2008-winning "The Counterfeiters"; Academy Award 2008 nominated "Mongol"; Academy Award 2007-winning "The Lives of Others"; and the Academy Award 2005-nominated "Downfall".