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Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Januar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an ihrem
ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific theme
in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture in Aachen
and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint motion picture “Oi!
Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

W were greying, his glasses becoming thicker, movements jerkier, he tra- the way down to the large lake beyond the property line where the national
hen Max Frisch, the architect and writer, was getting old, his temples
border used to be. In Volker Schlöndorff’s Villa, which one might call a house
velled to New York and started an affair. With a young American woman. A if the garden were not quite as extensive, as heavy with age, as deliberately
short, late, quick and quickly ending affair. And he wrote a book about it. About designed like a park, the border troops of the National People’s Army of the
the affair and about getting old, about life plans and their failing, about his lo- GDR used to reside until 1990. Here, where nowadays ivy covers the thick
neliness, the smell of kelp and the sea and the longing for happiness. He trunks of the beech trees, the border troop officers used to patrol in their IFA
named the book after the place of the action: Montauk. Volker Schlöndorff is bucket cars. And here, were now a curved narrow path leads down to the
nervous. Yet the sun is shining, a mild breeze blowing, branches of the chestnut shore, watch towers and the wall used to stand. “In the last third of the film,
trees in bloom are softly swaying up and down. But he is nervous, almost like it then becomes very calm, almost elegiac. Do you want to leave it like that?”
a film student before the final The production-colleague puts it
exam. A few employees and ac- very carefully, with caution. His
quaintances are present, and Saarland accent doesn’t allow it
Peter Fleischmann, his produ- to sound hard anyway. Schlön-
cer colleague. Almost simulta- dorff listens, tense, fully concen-
neously, they had been at the trated. If one sees him like that,
Institut des Hautes Études Ciné- one can hardly believe it: The
matographiques in Paris; al- young, alert man who is sitting
most simultaneously, they had there and listens will soon be
become famous. Volker Schlön- 80 years old. But the move-
dorff in 1966 with Der junge ments are young, the voice is
Törless, Peter Fleischmann in young, the quick, lively reacti-
1968 with Jagdszenen aus Nie- ons are young. Young is also his
derbayern, two debut films in nervousness that doesn’t let one
black and white which, with feel anything of his life’s work
their radical honesty and mer- consisting of more than 30 ci-
ciless realism, hit the zeitgeist nema films. He explains, tells
just before the student revolt. about the precise preliminary
Now they have come together rehearsals lasting several
for a test screening, the first pri- months with the protagonists,
vate showing of the next ci- the specifics of the shooting in
nema film by Volker Schön- the English language, about a
dorff, Rückkehr nach Montauk. shooting in New York, a shoo-
Nina Hoss and Stellan Skars- ting with actors from four diffe-
gård play a couple who once rent countries. About the effort
met and fell in love in New shooting in the English
York, who lost each other and Foto: Benjamin Reding language, in New York, with ac-
then, 17 years later, meet again. tors from four different coun-
Far away, on the Long Island tries means for an almost 80-
peninsula off Manhattan, whose southeasternmost tip is called montauk in the year-old producer – this, Volker Schlöndorff does not talk about. Yes, the en-
language of the native Indians. The reunion fails, the old feelings and the new ding will be changed, it will be cut to be shorter. There had been so much good
courses of life are incompatible. The story is freely derived from Max Frisch’s material by the actors that leaving some out had been more difficult for him,
story Montauk, but just in a few motifs. The script, the story, is by Volker he says. Peter Fleischmann nods. One goes on drinking coffee, eats the last
Schlöndorff. This is a first, Schlöndorff films had almost always been film ad- pieces of plum pie, loosely arranges a meeting for the next screening, the next
aptations of literature, from Robert Musil to Günter Grass, from Marcel Proust cut version. Then the “giants of film” separate. Tomorrow, Volker Schlöndorff
to Arthur Miller, the giants of world literature supplied the basic ideas. In the has to get up early. He is flying to New York. But not for a shooting. He goes to
case of Montauk, the criticism will therefore be aimed at both, his film and his his holiday home on Long Island to relax on the beach, swim, do nothing. Or
script. Not really comfortable prospects. Coffee and plum pie are ready, the to write the script for the next film. The house is far out, on the easternmost
view from the terrace sweeps across the slightly undulating lawn property all tip of the island, in the garden the smell of kelp and the sea: in Montauk.

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