An In Trust Films Production ​ ​ From award-winning director Polly Steele Based on the true life story of Helga Schneider ©LET ME GO 2016 A film about mothers and daughters Starring Juliet Stevenson, Jodhi May, Lucy Boynton, Karin Bertling 1 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES An In Trust Films Production A film by award-winning director Polly Steele PRODUCTION INFORMATION: Production Company: In Trust Films Year: 2016 Country: UK Language: English Duration: 110 mins Colour Aspect Ratio: 2.35 (SCOPE) Exhibition Format: DCP Audio: Stereo LoRo Shooting gauge: 2K Filming locations: Surrey, London, Vienna Let Me Go © 2016. All Rights Reserved #LetMeGo #WomeninFilm http://www.letmegomovie.com/ “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you” Maya Angelou 2 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES Cast Helga Juliet Stevenson Beth Jodhi May Emily Lucy Boynton Traudi Karin Bertling Serges Stanley Weber Dani Elizabeth Webster Eva Éva Magyar Fraulein Adler Simona Hughes Chris Abhin Galeya Crew Writer/Director/Producer Polly Steele ​ Producer Lizzie Pickering Producer David Broder Executive Producer George Tsitos Jonny Boston Rupert Labrum Mark Hopkins Cinematography Michael Wood Production Design Alexandra Walker Editor Daniel Goddard Costume Designer Holly Rebecca 3 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES Costume Supervisor Gemma Butterworth Composer Philip Selway Sound Recordist Dylan Voigt Casting Director Vicky Wildman Buffy Hall Crowd Casting Simona Hughes Art Director Laura Phillips Standby Art Director Isobel Dunhill Set Decorator Clare Andrade Production Buyer Tara Royston First Assistant Director Stephen Carney Second Assistant Director Zoe Smith Unit Photographer Andrew Ogilvy Unit Publicist Nick Pourgourides, Axiom Films Make-up Designer Laura Schalker Graphics Assistant Johanna Valeur Production Manager Erin Duffy Production Coordinator Lillie King Assistant Production Katie Organ Coordinator Location Manager Cat Ho Assistant Location Tom Marshall Manager Production Accountant Mark Hopkins Assistant Accountant Silva Andzane UK Location Catering Real Deel Caterers 4 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES Legal Jonny Boston Gaffer Ian Barwick About the Film Juliet Stevenson as Helga (left) and Karin Bertling as Traudi (right) © LET ME GO 2016 ​ ​ ​ ​ In her feature directorial debut, award-winning filmmaker Polly Steele has crafted a powerful and deeply moving drama based on the true story recounted in the best-selling memoirs by Helga Schneider, who was abandoned by her mother in 1941 when she was only four years old. The film is set in the year 2000, following not only Helga and her mother’s journeys but the next two generations and how they suffer from horrific events which took place over 70 years ago during the Second World War. With a stellar female led cast including Juliet Stevenson, Jodhi May, Lucy Boynton and Karin Bertling, LET ME GO is a film about mothers and daughters, about trans-generational family relationships and ghosts from the past and the impact they leave on the present. “It’s not only my personal story. It’s an authentic, direct witnessing of the psychological, social and emotional tragedies suffered by all the children of war criminals.” 5 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES Helga Schneider Synopsis Jodhi May as Beth (left), Lucy Boynton as Emily (centre) and Juliet Stevenson as Helga (right) ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ © LET ME GO 2016 Helga, now in her early 60s, has spent most of her life trying to escape her own – and her mother’s – past. As soon as she was old enough, Helga fled her native Germany for London where she has painstakingly built a life for herself. Everything is in its place: she has many acquaintances and no real friends. She’s had no contact with her mother since her childhood and has led Beth and Emily to believe that Traudi is dead. Often emotionally unreachable and dismissive, Helga has not been a great parent to Beth, who grew up wary of her mother’s unpredictable moods, anxious to please, but also somewhat wild. At twenty, Beth made her way to India, immersing herself in yoga, meditation and promiscuity. In her early thirties she returned to London with her own daughter, Emily. She works as a hospital nurse, is estranged from Emily’s father and has a difficult relationship with Emily – a confident history student – who is, in turn, far closer to Helga. 6 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES When Helga receives a letter telling her that Traudi is close to death, it is Emily (now eighteen) with whom Helga shares the truth. And it is Emily who volunteers to accompany her to Vienna to meet the great-grandmother she thought was dead. The unraveling of a family secret and the emotional impact on three mothers and three daughters makes this film at once a unique and universal experience. Director’s Statement – Polly Steele Director Polly Steele © LET ME GO 2016 The scars created from extreme trauma spread like a virus through the generations and leave wounds which perpetuate the initial pain far beyond its own lifespan. The story of LET ME GO came to me, literally, in a book-shop one day. A small paperback exposed itself slightly crookedly off the shelf so that I would see it and that was that . I … flew to Italy to meet Helga Schneider whose life story it depicts. Why did I pick this book? Well I suppose it mirrored something in me and I am fascinated with trauma, how long it lasts, how it seems to be inherited through our DNA (now substantiated in several scientific studies) and how we can let it go. I was so intrigued by this topic that I went away from film-making for 5 years to be trained as a life coach, NLP therapist and specialist in helping young people to deal with traumatic childhoods. After seven years of writing and re-writing the script, working with various different 7 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES companies and even putting it aside for a while, somehow the stars have realigned, the right team came together, the energy changed and we made the film. BUT our film is a contemporary story following not only Helga and her mother’s journeys but the next two generations and how they are confronted with the long-term effects of choices made during the Second World War. We made these creative decisions with Helga’s blessing. The two youngest generations are fictitious characters based on information given to us by Helga who wanted to protect the real identity of her close family members. She understands now that her story has continued to affect those who came after her and that is what the film focuses on. Her family has been plagued by tragedy, suicides and deeply dysfunctional relationships. She explained to me that her writing and her books keep her alive. Helga believes that we need to learn from the past to avoid perpetuating our own wounds onto future generations. 8 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES Abandoned by My Mother by Helga Schneider Helga Schnedier today © LET ME GO 2016 When I was a child, I wanted to be a writer. My mother abandoned me and my brother in Berlin, during the war. My family never told me why she left. Thirty years later, I went to find her myself and on that day I learned that she was a fanatic National Socialist that had eventually become a guard in the concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau as a female member of the SS. I wanted to be able to hate her. I wanted to forget my mother because I hated her, but you see, this is the great lesson that terrible encounter in Vienna taught me. It’s not possible to hate one’s own mother. The experts, the psychologists, they tell us that the relationship with your mother is very important. A human being can become great, good, bad, criminal, and this is often linked to how his or her mother/child relationship started. But my conflict (which is a historical one) has ruined my life. It ruined the relationship 9 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES with my mother who left me with a Nazi branding. It ruined the relationship with my son. I’m still suffering with the consequences…but with all these books, I’ve been able to create, between myself and the pain and shame for my mother, a wall, some distance… I was given, in the cradle, a talent, and this saved my life, saved my mind. I was given the opportunity to share my story…this has been my therapy. Q&A with Writer/Director, Polly Steele Director Polly Steele (left), Abhin Galeya as Chris (centre) and Jodhi May as Beth (right) ​ ​ ​ ​ © LET ME GO 2016 What drew you to developing LET ME GO for the big screen? I was drawn to this story, not really realizing that there was something in my own life that mirrored something in Helga’s story. So it inherently had a universal quality not just a personal one. You can then take that universal quality and transpose it into the aesthetic choices you make when writing and directing. In other words you find music, colours, patterns and performances that contain the bigger picture and that show themselves when put on the big screen. Was the look of the film firmly fixed in your mind from the outset upon reading Helga’s memoir? 10 LET ME GO – PRODUCTION NOTES For me inspiration starts from the heart and the source of creativity starts from the emotional story and then that emotion takes a shape and a visual quality and it’s at that point that you start to see your characters in physical form. Then of course when you start writing it down on the page you are visually imagining how it looks, what it sounds like, where the camera will be and how an audience will receive those images.