Weitertanzen

We meet in a cafe in the old-town district of San Sebastian. Two days earlier Friederike Jehn’s film "Draussen ist Sommer" ("Summer Outside") premiered in the Kutxa competition of the Basque festival, which is reserved for young directors. It was a great experience for the 35-year-old director: "San Sebastian is a very warm-hearted festival, you get really well looked-after, and the festival itself is wonderful." "Draussen ist Sommer" ("Summer Outside") is one of the very few German films to succeed in running at an A-festival in 2012 – a great triumph for Jehn, who lives in Berlin and can expect to experience a breakthrough at home with this, her first international appearance.

The film tells the story of Wanda (played with tremendous intensity by Maria Dragus), who moves to Switzerland with her two siblings and their parents. While she has to find her feet at a new school, her parents make an attempt to save their marriage. "For me, this was always a family film, told from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl," Jehn explains. "The film expresses a longing for family as a safe haven; that is the driving force behind it." At the same time, one of the film’s topics is grow ing up and finding oneself.

The film is more mature and covers a wider spectrum than Jehn’s feature film debut "Weitertanzen" ("Dancing on and on"), with which she already won numerous prizes. But even in "Weitertanzen" ("Dancing on and on") the focus is on a young, self-confident female, who does not appear quite as smooth as many of today’s cinematic characters. "In the case of both characters, I fought to make them active, and also to recount what was going on inside them using cinematic means. The thing that links both characters and the two films: there are strong, existing inner conflicts but the young women do not talk about them very much. Instead, they attempt to find a way out of the situation."

For Jehn, the work on the film was a very good, and also new experience in many respects: "I co-wrote the screenplay with another author for the first time – that worked very well because we partnered up so easily. When I see the film today, I cannot say which of us had exactly what ideas."

In order to prepare herself atmospherically, Jehn accepted inspiration from a number of films: in particular "Züchte Raben…" ("Cria Cuervos") by Carlos Saura. "There are many similarities: the children’s melancholy, their longing for their mother. The atmosphere was my inspiration." Jehn also found similar aspects of anarchy in Sofia Coppola’s debut film "The Virgin Suicides". And "Emporte Moi – Nimm mich mit" ("Emporte Moi") by French-Canadian director Lea Pool was also an important influence, she admits. What she likes about these films is their audacity, and the fact that they tell their stories in a very visual way: "You don’t have to elaborate all the narrative content suggested down to the very last detail."

Work with actors, including preparation work, is one of the things about her profession that particularly attracts her. "I am not one of those people who have always known that they wanted to become a filmmaker," she says to explain her career, "for some time, I was also very interested in the theater." At school she was in a theater group, and later she wanted to complete a degree in theater studies. This only changed as a result of work experience at a film production company.

Where do her strengths lie today? Jehn reveals that she finds her own works "very difficult to assess." But she hopes that she is able to orient her work a little on the humor and visuality of her personal film favorites, which include the works of French directors Jeunet & Caro, like "Delicatessen", "Rushmore" by the American Wes Anderson, and "So finster die Nacht" ("Let the Right One In") by the Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson.

Isolated worlds where characters have to fight their way out and find their own place in life is another parallel which runs through Friederike Jehn’s films. At present she is working simultaneously on two ideas for films: on a children’s film and the film version of a novel about the 1968 revolutionary movement. A sense of belong ing is vital to her personally, as well. Some names keep re-appearing in her works: Bernd Lange, who she met at the film academy, and "who has acted as a tutor and coach for me", Ben von Grafenstein, with whom she studied – he took on the editing of her very first film, "or also my cameraman Sten Mende, with whom I have already made four films." By contrast, she has always changed her producer for each work to date. However, this has been due to chance and the vagaries of the German film support scene – and Jehn already made a film, while at the film academy, together with Hanneke van der Tas, with whom she is currently developing a feature film project.

Jehn views her profession realistically, having no illusions: "I thought that a time would come when you got to feel more secure. But I do feel closer to the profession now. Although there are still moments when I feel as if I am right back at the beginning."

Author: Rüdiger Suchsland