08/10/2012 - Markus Dietrich shoots Sputnik, a film for children with Devid Striesow

Markus Dietrich last week (Tuesday, October 2) started filming his first feature, a film for children titled Sputnik. Filming is to take place in Saxony-Anhalt until late November.

The screenplay, written by Dietrich himself, "tells of the fall of the [Berlin] wall as seen by children". It once again features the theme of teleportation, already explored by the young filmmaker in several of his short films. After her uncle is thrown out of the GDR into the FRG, Sputnik’s young heroine Frederike decides to build a machine to find him, with the help of friends equally fascinated by Captain Kirk. The experiment then takes on an unexpected turn, as on November 9, 1989, instead of transporting the children, the machine sends all the other inhabitants of their town over to West Germany. At first, the three children think they are alone in the world, but soon they will see their families and neighbours’ efforts to climb back over the wall on television.

The adult roles are notably played by Devid Striesow (The Counterfeiters [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Yvonne Catterfeld, Maxim Mehmet (Men in the City [+see also:
trailer
film profile]), and Andreas Schmidt (The Counterfeiters).

Sputnik is produced by Weimar-based production company ostlicht filmproduktion with Hamster Film, A Private View (Belgium) and Negativ Films (Czech Republic). The project is supported by German national funds FFA and DFFF, regional funds Mitteldeutschen Medienförderung and Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Eurimages, and the Czech Film Fund. Sputnik is to be released in Germany in the autumn of 2013.

(Translated from French)