tom gramenz swen gippa a film by stéphane riethauser

Tom Gramenz
Swen Gippa
A film by Stéphane Riethauser
LAMBDA PROD presents • in coproduction with RTS – Swiss Radio Television With the support of Swiss Federal Office
of Culture, department of home affairs • CITY OF GENEVA, DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AND SPORTS
Regio Films Fund • MIGROS CULTURE PERCENTAGE • DIALOGAI, Geneva
TOM GRAMENZ • SWEN GIPPA • “PRORA” • a film by Stéphane Riethauser Associate producer Isabelle Gattiker
Director of photography Marcus Winterbauer Sound Carlos Ibañez Díaz First assistant director Marie-Catherine Theiler
Editing Barbara Toennieshen, BFS, Véronique Rotelli Camera assistant Nicolas Delaroche
Costumes & Props Ingrid Buhrmann Make-up & Special effects Tanja Maria Koller Location manager Petra Wild
Sound design Carlos Ibañez Díaz Music David Perrenoud, Benoît Mayer Sound mix Martin Stricker
Written, directed and produced by Stéphane Riethauser
distribution edition salzgeber, berlin
© 2012 lambda prod – RTS
www.prora-themovie.com
PRORA
FESTIVALS / AWARDS / PRESS
"Riethauser's provocation (there will be blood) connects the dots between the Weimar era and today's partydown Euro youth. Director of photography Marcus Winterbauer lenses this intimate epic with aerial shots
interspersed with languorous semi-nudity."
The Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco
"This director is gifted ! A successful first film. Breathtaking pictures, a subtle script, a well-balanced rhythm,
two charming actors. And Prora, this monstrous former Nazi holiday center, a character on its own. This
fascinating and disgusting location on the Baltic seashore was necessary to depict the identities and unveil
the human feelings. A coming of age tale that shakes up your convictions."
Ouest France
15 awards and 120 official festival selections worldwide 2012-2013
EUROPE
Bruxelles Short Film Festival
Festival Européen du Film Court Brest
Festival du Cinéma Européen Essonne
Festival du Film Court Lille
Festival Silhouette Paris
Festival Intl du Film d’Aubagne
Festival Chéries-Chéris Paris
Festival C’est Trop Court Nice
Festival In&Out, Nice
Vues d’en face, Grenoble
Festival Désirs Désirs Tours
Face à Face, Saint-Etienne
Du grain à Démoudre, Le Havre
Cinémarges, Bordeaux
Holebi Film Festival, Belgien
Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival
London BFI L&G Film Festival
Portobello Film Festival, London
Gaze Dublin
Iris Prize Festival Cardiff, Wales
Hamburg Intl Queer Film Festival
Flensburger Kurzfilmtage
Liebe Filme Festival, Germany
Berlin Xposed Queer Intl Film Festival
International Film Awards Berlin
Bielefelder Schwule Filmtage
Karlsruhe Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage
Hannover Perlen
Festival
GSC Filmfest im Allgäu
Rostock Queer Fest
FilmKunstFest MV Schwerin
Weiterstadt Queer Woche
Queer Film festival Esslingen
Leipzig Prager Frühling
Gay Film Nacht Germany
Schwule Filmwoche Freiburg
Oldenburg Rollenwechsel Festival
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur
Solothurner Filmtage
Pink Apple
International Festival Zürich
Queersicht Festival Bern
Luststreifen Basel Queer Festival
Nuit du Court Métrage Lausanne
Everybody’s Perfect, Geneva
Festival CourToujours, Geneva
Emmentaler Filmtage, Switzerland
Identities Queer Festival, Vienna
Oslo GLBT
Festival
Mix Copenhagen
Lesbigai Festival, Madrid
Bilbao Zinegoak International Festival
ELEGEBETE Fest Malaga, Spain
Cinhomo Valladolid, Spain
Torino GLBT Festival
Mix Milano
Florence Queer Festival
Overlook Film Festival Ligure, Italy
Sardinian Queer Film Festival, Italy
Sicilian Queer Film Festival, Italy
Lago Film Festival, Italy
Pentedatillo Short Festival, Italy
Outview Athens GLBT Film Festival
Thessaloniki LGBT Film Festival
Budapest Shorts Busho
Ostrava Kamera Oko Festival
Mezipatra Film Festival Prag
Merlinka Intl Queer Festival Belgrade
Ljubljana LGBT
Vilnius International Short Fest
Wiz-Art Intl Festival, Lviv, Ukraine
NORTH & SOUTH AMERICA
Palm Springs International Short Fest
Hollyshorts Film Festival Los Angeles
Outfest Los Angeles
New York City Short Film Festival
NewFest, New York City
New York City Intl Film Festival
Frameline San Francisco
San Francisco Intl Shorts
Tiburon International Film Festival
QFest Philadelphia
Durango Independent Film Festival
Boston LGBT
Seattle Queer Film Festival
QFest Houston
Southwest GLFF Albuquerque
ImageOut Rochester NY
Eau Queer Festival Wisconsin
Milwaukee LGBT Film Festival
North Carolina GLFF Durham
QFest Asheville, NC
Santa Barbara Outrageous Festival
San Diego FilmOut
CMG Festival West Hollywood
Ogunquit Festival, Maine
Out Film Festival, Connecticut
Outflix Memphis, Tennessee
Toronto Inside Out
CFC Toronto W-wide Short Film Fest
Montreal Image+Nation
Vues Parallèles, Québéc
Non Violence Film Festival, Canada
Puerto Rico Queer Film Fest
Outfest Santo Domingo, Dom. Rep.
Mix Brasil, Sao Paulo
Rio Gay Film Festival
Mix México
AFRICA, MIDDLE EAST, ASIA
Durban Gay & Lesbian Festival
Tel-Aviv LGBT Film Festival
International Izmir Short Film Festival
Teen Intl Short Festival Istanbul
Jaipur International Film Festival, India
Calcutta GLBT Film Festival, India
Kashish Mumbai Queer Festival
Hong Kong InDpanda Film Festival
Q! Film Festival Djakarta, Indonesia
Melbourne Queer Film Festival
Melbourne Little Queer Festival
Brisbane Queer Film Festival
Outtakes New Zealand
www.prora-themovie.com
PITCH
Prora, on the Baltic Sea. Mysterious, endless. In this deserted former Nazi holiday camp
and communist military complex, teenagers Jan and Matthieu embark on an adventure that
confronts their identities and puts their friendship at risk.
www.prora-themovie.com
SYNOPSIS
Prora, Rügen Island, Baltic Sea. A deserted Nazi holiday camp and communist military
complex - one of Germany's largest and most bizarre structures. Jan, 17, a rather timid
German teenager, spends his summer holidays with his friend Matthieu, 18, a French selfproclaimed macho womanizer. After a frustrating night in the local club, the two boys decide
to hang out on the beach at sunrise. What starts as an innocent game soon develops into
an ambiguous confrontation, when Matthieu takes his friend along into the abandoned
building, and provokes him by making fun of Germany’s past. After a chase through Prora’s
endless hallways, Jan provokes Matthieu in return by suddenly kissing him on the lips. The
two friends unexpectedly embark on an erotic game that puts their friendship at risk.
Overwhelmed by their feelings, they try to escape, but they get lost in Prora’s labyrinthine
series of rooms and walkways. Desperate, tortured, a fight breaks out that leaves Jan alone
and wounded. A few days later, Jan and Matthieu meet again on the beach. Will they
become friends again before they part?
A journey of self-exploration, an odyssey of male adolescence, Prora is a thrilling, tender
story about love and friendship.
www.prora-themovie.com
PRORA
At a staggering 4,5 km in length, Prora is a former holiday camp built from 1936 to 1939 by
the Nazis. The structure is located on the Island of Rügen, just north of the German
mainland in the Baltic Sea. Designed by Hitler-appointed architect Clemens Klotz, this
massive outlay of concrete was meant to host 20,000 people for a strictly controlled
vacation. But war interrupted construction in 1939. The „Colossus of Rügen Island“ was
used as a military hospital and a refugee camp, before the Red Army took it over in 1945.
Communist East Germany turned it into a military base. For almost 40 years, Prora served
as a training camp for soldiers and officers. It was abandoned shortly after the Berlin Wall
came down in 1989.
Prora (Latin), πρῷρα (Greek): the prow, the bow of a ship or a vessel.
www.prora-themovie.com
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I was working on a script about two boys confronting their identities when one day I read a
newspaper article about Prora. I immediately thought it would be the perfect setting to stage
my story. Its endless dimensions allowed unusual cinematic possibilities and its massively
historic and oppressive architecture offered many symbolic perspectives. I also liked the
name “Prora”, which in Latin and Greek means the prow of a ship. It matched my desire to
tell the story of the two friends Jan and Matthieu, one German and the other French.
Despite opposite backgrounds and personalities, Jan and Matthieu gradually feel attracted
to each other until they unexpectedly have sex for the first time. But they have trouble
coming to terms with it: their physical and emotional outburst blows up their cultural
patterns, blurs their relationship and challenges their masculinity. Nonetheless, their
friendship prevails. The experience deepens their understanding of their own identities.
Whether gay or straight, Jan and Matthieu will never forget this adventure, which opens new
horizons and allows them to become men.
I see Prora’s labyrinthine structure as a third lead character in the story. A vestige of the
past, a witness of failed fascist and communist utopias, the complex reveals the tension
between the boys and provides a stark contrast with the sensuous beauty of the adjacent
Baltic Sea. A statement on the perils of normative heterosexism, Prora underscores the
poisonous inflexibility of Jan and Matthieu’s inherited social landscape.
Given the building’s extraordinary suggestive power, I also built in solitary time for both Jan
and Matthieu in and around the structure. Over the course of the film, the monstrosity
renders the boys at once more fragile, more resilient and more human. Only on the beach,
wordless and elemental, are they able to reconcile.
A journey of self-exploration, a tale of male adolescence, a parabolic confrontation between
nature and culture, Prora is a simple, tender story about love and friendship.
Stéphane Riethauser
www.prora-themovie.com
STEPHANE RIETHAUSER
Writer, Director, Producer
Stéphane Riethauser was born in 1972 in Geneva, Switzerland. He holds a law degree
from the University of Geneva. Over the years, he has been working as a teacher, gay
activist, photographer, editor, journalist and translator – before becoming a television
director. He is the author of “A visage découvert”, a photography book about coming out
(Ed. Slatkine, 2000), and has created numerous documentaries and reports for Swiss
Radio Television RTS (2003-2008). He also produced and co-directed documentary
feature “Le Temps Suspendu” on painter Marius Borgeaud (Lambda Prod, 2007). Since
2009, Stéphane Riethauser has lived and worked as an independent filmmaker in Berlin.
“Prora” is his first fiction short film.
For full bio and filmography: www.riethauser.com / www.lambda-prod.ch
Contact: [email protected]
www.prora-themovie.com
TOM GRAMENZ
Tom Gramenz, born 1991 in Wiesbaden, Germany, started his acting career at the age of 15. His first film
is a short film called “Fluke”. Since then, he has been seen in many TV shows for major German broadcasters such as RTL, ZDF and Nick. Tom has also acted in several theatre projects in Wiesbaden and
Mainz. Recently, he starred in “Beach Boy” (short by Hannes Hirsch, GER, 2010) and in the TV series
“Soko Köln” and “Stolberg”.
SWEN GIPPA
Swen Gippa, born 1988, is a promising new talent from Montreux, Switzerland, currently living in Paris.
Swen graduated in 2009 from the prestigious Cours Florent in Paris before joining Acting International, a
film, theatre and TV school, for an extra year. He has already been seen in theatre in Paris and Lyon and
in two films, “Noirs peupliers” (2009) by Warren Vrecord and “On y danse” (2010) by Franck Llopis and
Virginie Bordes. Swen is also a talented sportsman and plays piano and classical guitar.
www.prora-themovie.com
PRODUCTION CREW
Production
Coproduction
With the support of
Lambda Prod – Stéphane Riethauser
Swiss Radio Television RTS
Swiss Federal Office of Culture – Federal Department
of Home Affairs
City of Geneva, Department of Culture and Sports
Regio Films Fund, with the Loterie Romande, the City & the
Canton of Geneva
Migros Culture Percentage
Dialogai, Geneva
Lead Actor (Jan)
Lead Actor (Matthieu)
Tom Gramenz
Swen Gippa
Writer, Director, Producer
Associate Producer
Director of Photography
Sound
1st Asst. Director
Camera Assistant
Costume & Props
Make-Up & SFX
Location Manager
Aerial Photography
Editing
Sound Design
Sound Mix
Stéphane Riethauser
Isabelle Gattiker
Marcus Winterbauer
Carlos Ibañez Diaz
Marie-Catherine Theiler
Nicolas Delaroche
Ingrid Buhrmann
Tanja Maria Koller
Petra Wild
Holger Fleig & Volker Tittel, BVK
Barbara Toennieshen, BFS
Véronique Rotelli
David Perrenoud
Benoît Mayer
Carlos Ibañez Diaz
Martin Stricker
Distribution GER / CH / AUT
Distribution WORLD
Edition Salzgeber, Berlin – [email protected]
Lambda Prod – [email protected]
Music composer
www.prora-themovie.com
TECHNICAL DATA
Production year
2012
Production country
Switzerland
Length
23 min.
Shooting format
HD Video 16:9 Color – 1:78
Available screening formats
DCP PAL
HDCAM PAL or NTSC
DIGIBETA PAL
BETA SP PAL
DVD region 0, 1, all
MEDIA FILE .MOV
Original language
German and French
Subtitles
English
(available in French & German also)
www.prora-themovie.com