Lilly the witch returns

by Bénédicte Prot

28/10/2009 - Swedish-born director Harald Sicheritz has just finished shooting the second instalment of the adventures of Lilly, young German viewers’ favourite witch. This follows the success of Lilly the Witch: The Dragon and the Magic Book [trailer], by Vienna-born Stefan Ruzowitzky (director of Oscar-winning film The Counterfeiters [trailer]), which was released on February 19, 2009 and showed the little magician learning her spells.

The films are based on Knister’s popular Lilly The Witch children’s novels which, before being brought to the big screen, drew 500,000 viewers as a TV series.

The second instalment, Hexe Lilli 2: Die Reise nach Mandolan, is written by Bettine and Achim von Borries (who wrote The Three Robbers [trailer]). In it, the little witch discovers majestic India with its forts, palaces and magnificent deserts.

Alina Freund once again plays Lilly, alongside Anja Kling (Männersache [trailer]) as her mother and outstanding actress Pilar Bardem as the witch Surulunda. Newcomers to the cast are Tanay Chheda, the young star of Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire [trailer, film focus], in the role of Musa, and Jürgen Tarrach (The Reader [trailer]). Lilly’s friend Hector the dragon, a computer-generated character, will once again have the voice of comedian Michael Mittermeier.

Shooting started in mid-August on a sumptuous Indian set created at Babelsberg Studios, before relocating, at the end of September, to this fascinating country where the team worked with numerous extras and exotic animals.

Lilly The Witch 2 is produced for almost €10m by Corinna Mehner and Martin Husmann for Blue Eyes Fiction and Michael Coldewey for Munich-based Trixter, in co-production with Austria and Spain, and with backing from Eurimages. Disney Studios Motion Pictures Germany will launch the film on German screens on January 27, 2011.

(Translated from French)