Film Archive
(kommenden Tage, Die)
Production Report featured in
German Films Quarterly 04/2009
The seeds for Lars Kraume's latest feature film Die kommenden Tage ("The Days to Come") were sown three years ago upon the birth of his first son.
"At the time, Lars reflected on how his son would be living in 18 years time, in what kind of a world this child would then become an adult," recalls producer Frank Doehmann who joined Kraume, Matthias Glasner and Juergen Vogel as a partner in their production house Badlands Film at the beginning of 2009.
Kraume began researching the subject in 2006 and then spent most of 2007 and 2008 writing the screenplay for what has now become Badlands Film's second feature production after Glasner's This is Love which premiered in competition at San Sebastian in September.
"The world economic events of the past months confirm me in my desire to realize Die kommenden Tage because I think that we have a long period of instability ahead of us," Kraume explains. "The major crises like the 'Peak Oil' and the resulting war for resources, the climate change and the ensuing problems of drinking water provision, the global population explosion and the increase in social conflicts will bring our society into even direr straits in the near future than the bursting of the American property bubble. Die kommenden Tage should confront the audience with the question as to which world do we actually want to live in in the future."
The film's action focuses on the passage of a middle-class family in Berlin from the present to a thoroughly realistic, near future, a time of instability and big changes. Laura Kuper (Bernadette Heerwagen) must decide at the end of her studies between her desire for children and Hans (Daniel Bruehl), the great love of her life. Her sister Cecilia (Johanna Wokalek), meanwhile, is driven by her unrequited love for Konstantin (August Diehl) into the blackest depths of a newly emerging terrorism, and Philip, the youngest member of the family, sets off into a hopeless war for the last oilfields in Asia...
"While the story begins in 2010/11 in the near future and we are approaching 2025 towards the end of the film, this should not be regarded as a science fiction film," Doehmann stresses. "We move only very slowly into another world and have been very careful with the changes we show. We sat together with architects to come up with ideas on the changes to the architecture and will have this created using CGI effects."
In the impressive cast lineup, which also includes Susanne Lothar and Ernst Stoetzner as the parents, Bernadette Heerwagen is in fact the only person who had worked with Kraume before – in his 2004 Tatort episode Wo ist Max Graevert?
Daniel Bruehl and August Diehl, meanwhile, got a first taste of working with Kraume when they joined Heerwagen to appear in a 7-minute black-and-white 'mood trailer' Badlands produced to give potential financiers a visualization of the proposed atmosphere for the film.
Principal photography for the 49-day shoot began towards the end of August in Frankfurt, before moving to North Rhine-Westphalia in September, Berlin in October and wrapping in Austria's Tyrolean Alps at the end of October.
Indeed, the architecture of Frankfurt's city center proved to be just what Kraume was looking for to depict the near future. "It is the likes of which one doesn't see anywhere else in Germany and we were spoiled for choice with suitable locations in North Rhine-Westphalia to stand in for parts of Berlin,” Doehmanns says. “We found villas in Wuppertal that were just right as a home for the family in the film."
Meanwhile, he felt no concern about Kraume overdoing things by juggling the different roles as director, screenwriter and producer on the 6.5 million Euro project. "One can't expect him to be thinking like a producer during the shoot even though that will naturally be at the back of his mind," Doehmann explains.
"He is now 100% the director during the shoot," he continues. "In any case, things are made much easier by the relationship of personal trust which has been built up between us over the years. We have worked in the past on TV projects together and I had collaborated with Matthias Glasner on Der freie Wille. So we are on the same wavelength and complement one another."
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Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2009
Director Lars Kraume
Screenplay Lars Kraume
Director of Photography Sonja Rom
Editor Barbara Gies
Production Design Irina Kromayer
Producers Katrin Schloesser, Lars Kraume, Frank Doehmann, Matthias Glasner, Juergen Vogel
Production Company Badlands Film/Berlin, in co-production with WDR/Cologne, Degeto Film/Frankfurt, ARTE/Strasbourg, in cooperation with UFA Cinema/Potsdam
Principal Cast Bernadette Heerwagen, Daniel Bruehl, Johanna Wokalek, August Diehl, Susanne Lothar, Ernst Stoetzner, Mehdi Nebbou
Casting Nessie Nesslauer
Format 35 mm, color, cs
Shooting Language German
Shooting in Frankfurt am Main, Wuppertal, Duesseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, Tyrol, August - October 2009
Sound Technology Dolby
With backing from German Federal Film Board (FFA), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmstiftung NRW
German Distributor Universal Pictures International Germany/Frankfurt, UFA Cinema/Potsdam
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