On a hidden flooring in an previous resort within the Alps, Nazi Germany remains to be alive in The Secret Ground (Das geheime Stockwerk), a time-travel journey movie for the entire household that wishes to assist youngsters study concerning the darkish previous. The German-Austrian-Luxembourgish co-production from Kevin Lee Movie Germany, Amour Fou Vienna, Amour Fou Luxembourg and director/producer Norbert Lechner (The Wall Between Us), based mostly on a script by Katrin Milhahn and Antonia Rothe-Liermann, stars Silas John, Annika Benzin, Maximilian Reinwald, Marie Jung, Maximilian Simonischek, and Tobias Resch. The Playmaker is dealing with gross sales.
“When 12-year-old Karli strikes to an previous resort within the Alps, he discovers an elevator that harbors a secret – it’s a magical time portal that transports him again to 1938!” reads a synopsis. “There, he befriends Hannah, a spirited Jewish woman, and Georg, a shoeshine boy. However when Georg is falsely accused of stealing, the youngsters should clear up a thriller case hidden throughout the resort’s partitions, all whereas the shadow of Nazi Germany begins to develop round them.”
The film, shot at two former lodges in Austria and in Luxembourg, has performed the Zlín Movie Competition in Czechia, the place it received the youngsters’s jury award, Germany’s Goldener Spatz, the place it earned honors for the most effective function movie and greatest actor, and the Giffoni Movie Competition, the place it received the Tommy Hilfiger Particular Award.
Try a trailer for the movie right here.
Forward of its screening on the twenty ninth version of the Tallinn Black Nights Movie Competition (PÖFF) on Nov. 9, Lechner talked to THR about bringing The Secret Ground to life, how the film happened, and the way the ghosts of the Nazi previous reared their heads at a latest competition.
Rothe-Liermann grew up within the GDR. “In class, the eight-year-old youngsters had been proven a movie about Auschwitz, and he or she was actually shocked and couldn’t sleep for months,” Lechner recalled concerning the genesis of the thought. “As an grownup and a script author, she thought of how we will inform youngsters about this time with out traumatizing them? We had already made two movies collectively. And when she got here up with this concept, I cherished it from the primary second.”
A Michael J. Fox basic was a part of the analysis. “We checked out time journey movies, watching Again to the Future a number of instances, to see how the story was constructed,” the director informed THR. “And we did numerous analysis and talked to scientists and historians to get every thing proper. After which we had the thought for a little bit felony investigation to have a extra adventurous half, along with the true, historic half. We had numerous drafts, however it got here collectively.”
Lechner and his collaborators have talked to youngsters and their households after screenings of the movie and acquired a lot optimistic suggestions. “I feel a powerful level of this movie is that the story takes place in two instances – Nazi Germany on the key flooring, and the current,” he defined. “And so you can’t push the previous into the space. In the event you had it enjoying simply within the Nazi time, you possibly can create that distance for your self as an viewers member. ‘This was distant previously, distant from me.’ However on this movie, you journey again in time with Karli on this time, and it makes it really feel extra actual.”
And like Karli, younger audiences could also be shocked to search out out what the Nazi time meant for Jewish and different individuals within the nation.
Experiences of the darkish and horrific previous are lightened by moments of humor, for instance, when Karli talks to youngsters in 1938 about their very totally different outfits or know-how they don’t know, corresponding to cell phones or the cloud. “We have now this tradition conflict between our time and the previous,” Lechner highlighted. “And we additionally constructed numerous that into the dialogue. We tried to have dialogue that was identical to youngsters had been talking again then. For instance, one phrase that could be very typical of that point is ‘famos’,” or splendid.
‘The Secret Ground’
Courtesy of PÖFF
Working with little one actors, lots of whom star of their first appearing or movie, meant numerous preparation. “We began rehearsing a yr earlier than capturing,” Lechner recalled. “We had numerous improvisation to get the children used to how completely totally different life for them was again then, even how youngsters moved. For instance, the youngsters enjoying Nazi boys needed to get pressure of their our bodies as a result of they had been residing in a really army setting. And Annika needed to rehearse tips on how to curtsy, as a result of she didn’t know the way to try this.”
The ghosts of the Nazi previous reared their heads when The Secret Ground premiered on the Goldener Spatz in Gera, Germany. One night, the competition staff and its visitors went to a restaurant with massive home windows, Lechner recalled. “The day after we premiered the movie, there was an illustration of Neo Nazis,” he stated. “They knew that our movie was the opening movie. They’d indicators and had been taking a look at us very threateningly by the window. It was a very sturdy expertise.”
Lechner hopes that The Secret Ground will lead households to exchanges and additional studying. “My want can be that folks go see the movie with their youngsters, in order that they’ll speak concerning the movie afterwards,” he informed THR. “That is actually essential. And I hope academics go see this movie with their youngsters. In Germany, the topic of the Third Reich comes up in class for younger people who find themselves 14 or 15 years previous. Listening to about it for the primary time then is actually too late.”
Concluded Lechner: “So I hope that The Secret Ground is an opportunity to enter the movie, and afterwards, youngsters can ask about it. What was that? What occurred? We determined to not inform every thing historic, to open issues up for extra questions and dialogue.”
The film subsequent screens on the AFM in Nov. 12 and the Philadelphia Jewish Movie + Media Competition on Nov. 14.
Lechner has a number of initiatives in growth. One is one other movie with the 2 The Secret Ground scriptwriters. “It’s additionally in 1938, however it’s an grownup story, and it’s a couple of massive convention within the small French city of Évian that was arrange by the U.S. President [Franklin D. Roosevelt] the place numerous nations got here collectively. The query of this convention was what ought to occur with the Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. We’re making ready a movie that’s based mostly on a e book by Hans Habe from the ’60s known as The Mission.”