This idea for this short film came to me after losing my parents, friends and people in my life who were extremely important to me.
While I went through the hard and dark helplessness, it was first hard to accept that enormous hole each person left in my life. But at one point I realized none of the person I lost was gone. They made me the person I am and therefore they will be always with me.
In all those years of grief I realized a lot of phenomena, two of them are:
You are enjoying yourself, your mind is far from your lost ones but than suddenly in one moment a memory comes up and you can feel the energy and love of that lost person, strong and powerful, like they are just standing in front of you and smiling at you.
Another phenomenon is: At some locations I feel more connected to them than at other locations. At these locations I can literally feel that nothing is gone, all is there! In those moments my sadness would turn to joy and comfort and closure.
This short film is inspired by both these phenomena. And I was sure that I was crazy — somehow I thought I created all those feelings to get over my grief. For years and years I put them in a cupboard with the title: things I do not talk about it because they are crazy!
It took me a lot to reach out to my team. I think it was probably the bravest thing I ever did in my life to open this cupboard — I was sure nobody in my working field will understand an idea which isn’t fancy, fashionable or even up to date — nothing I could put on my show reel as a commercial director.
I was very touched that everybody on the team when I shared my idea responded and wanted to be a part of it. The DP (Eric Maddison) and the wonderful actress (Claire Titelmnn) understood directly and we had a very intimate beautiful shooting day together. And then again the Postproduction manager (Sabine Schmalenbach) who knows me as a commercial director and the editor (Juhn Kim) who did a very sensitive edit as well as Julien von Schulzendorff, and the musicians ( L’Aiglon) in Paris dong the music. Everybody understood immediately the idea and had similar feelings.
After years and years of feeling like a strange idiot it felt like strawberry cake to have that understanding.
I hope others enjoy it, too.