Nacht vor Augen

Brigitte Maria Bertele and Austria seem to have a thing going. "I like the ambivalence of it," says the director. "Perhaps it has something to do with me growing up in Bavaria, the cultures are quite
similar." Bertele clearly has a foible for our neighbors in the south-east: much earlier, when she had not yet contemplated film direction but was interested in philosophy and playing with the idea of studying humanities, curiously enough her favorite was the Vienna philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, a man of many contradictions who combined theories of strict logic with notions of 'language games', who worked as an elementary school teacher rather than a university professor, and was also a talented architect who once built a house. 

In the end, Bertele didn’t study Philosophy after all; instead, she began training as an actress and worked successfully for some years in the profession, primarily on the stage. Then Austria had a renewed influence – at the Diagonale in Graz. She saw the films of Heddy Honigman in a retrospective there, and immediately she knew: "That is exactly what I want to do!" A study of Direction at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Film Academy in Ludwigsburg followed that insight – she qualified as a documentary film director – as well as semesters abroad in Tirana/Albania and at the Film College of Buenos Aires. In the meantime, Bertele mainly makes feature films; her first full-length feature, "Nacht vor Augen" ("A Hero’s Welcome"), which premiered in the International Forum of the Berlinale 2008, already made Bertele into one of the hardest-headed, most promising voices of her generation.

"Nacht vor Augen" came to grips with a subject that is still taboo in Germany and – by contrast to other countries – has been examined only rarely in German cinema to date: German soldiers who have served in war regions, and the question of what actually goes through their mind when they return after the experience of death and violence to the peaceful conditions of German middle-class society?

Bertele shows this through the example of David, a young man who has experienced borderline situations and cannot find his way back into society. It is the intense drama of a homecoming soldier and a nightmarishly staged story of emotional derangement, far from sentimental.

"I find people in borderline situations interesting," Bertele says, "but the conflicts tackled in my films slumber within us all." It is important to Bertele that cinema thematizes the present day and the realities of life around us. Perhaps it is here that one notices her origins in documentary film most clearly and that she still numbers some documentary filmmakers among her favourite directors: Joris Ivens and Frederick Wiseman, for example. "My view of the cinema has been shaped by documentary film," she says, and also cites the British direct cinema and cinema verité. "I see myself as a kind of anthropologist," Bertele adds. "Even such absolutely fundamental questions as 'How should we live?' can be handled in the cinema."

She recently finished shooting in Mannheim for her new film, with the working title "Der Brand", which should have its premiere at a film festival during the second half of this year. It is also about what is known in medical language as a 'post-traumatic stress disorder'. How does a person cope with dreadful memories, how can life continue when everything seems to be over? This time, it is about a young woman who struggles with the consequences of rape. She tries to fight against the fact that being raped has changed her. But her image of herself as a self-confident, independent woman and her relation to her own body begin to show cracks ...

The screenplay was written by Johanna Stuttmann, who also wrote her first film; Bertele has worked with her since film school. Although she "only" collaborates on the development of the screenplays, Bertele obviously views herself as an author filmmaker: "I always have to come to a point where I can say to myself: that is mine, I have to chew over the stories as long as it takes, until they are mine." She regards this process of acquisition as one aspect of her creativity. 

In a similar way to many well-known author filmmakers, Bertele also likes to continue working with the same people. For the future, she imagines herself as part of a working family, a pool of familiar and trusted colleagues, but one that can always be recombined. For instance, the cameraman for "Der Brand" was Hans Fromm, who is known primarily as Christian Petzold’s cinematographer. "I would get bored with myself if I didn’t work with new people now and again," she says.

She considers her direction of acting one of her strengths as a director. This is actually surprising, as acting might appear to be the opposite of direction. While one group needs to be constantly analyzing, thinking a lot and keeping things under control, actors need to do the opposite: abandon control, not attempt to watch themselves. "As a former actress," Bertele says, "perhaps I am more able to give concrete artistic and creative instructions." The effect is often described in a screenplay, but not the way that it can be produced.

She seeks advice when it comes to casting, as many directors have started doing recently: "It sharpens your perspective for a character." While selecting the actors, it is important to her "that someone is not predefined by past roles, so that they can keep an open mind regarding the character." One example of this is Maja Schoene, the leading actress of  "Der Brand" – a discovery.

Asked again about her role models, she mentions the name Anges Varda – her films are always located on the threshold between authenticity and artificiality – and Carlos Reygadas. And the much-loved Austrians: in the case of her latest material, Goetz Spielmann’s "Revanche"  was especially important. And Ulrich Seidl’s films, of course. "And only recently I saw Jessica Hauner’s 'Lourdes'. That’s also a fascinatingly made film.”

Author: Ruediger Suchsland