presents HELL Directed by Tim Fehlbaum Starring Hannah Herzsprung, Lars Eidinger, Stipe Erceg, Lisa Vicari, Angela Winkler Executive Producer Roland Emmerich Produced by Thomas Wöbke, Gabriele Walther, Caligari Film- und Fernsehproduktion in coproduction with Ruth Waldburger, Vega film and Dr. Stefan Gärtner, SevenPictures film 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 Casting An Dorthe Braker Setdesign Heike Lange Costumes Leonie Leuenberger Editing Andreas Menn Music Lorenz Dangel TECHNICAL DETAILS Germany 2011 Running time: 90 min Format: 35mm, 1:2,35, Dolby Digital 5.1 CONTACT INTERNATIONAL PRESS Beta Cinema, Dorothee Stoewahse Tel: + 49 170 63 84 627 [email protected] CONTACT WORLD SALES Beta Cinema, Dirk Schuerhoff/Andreas Rothbauer Tel: + 49 89 67 34 69 80 Fax: + 49 89 67 34 69 888 [email protected] 2 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 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. 3 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 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,” 4 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 "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- 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.