15/01/2013 - At the end of the month, the winner of the 2009 Oscar for the Best Short Film begins shooting his first feature film, a psychological thriller inspired by The Burrow by Kafka

Jochen Alexander Freydank, born in East Berlin in 1967 and praised for his short movies, especially Spielzeugland which won him the Oscar for Best Short Film in 2009, is about to begin shooting his first feature film, the psychological thriller Der Bau, inspired by the short story of the same name by Franz Kafka, entitled in English The Burrow.

In this unfinished story, published posthumously, a half-human, half-beast narrator tells how he built the perfect home for himself, a vast, safe burrow to which he always tried to add new features but which he constantly fears will be discovered by an outside enemy. Freydank wrote the screenplay himself.

Axel Prahl will play the main role in Der Bau, alongside Austrian actors Devid Striesow (The Counterfeiters [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), Josef Hader (Bone Man [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Robert Stadlober.

Production is being handled by the director through his company, Mephisto Film, in coproduction with the Luxemburg company Deal Productions and with the support of the Sarre region (where shooting is to begin), the German DFFF and the Fonds Luxembourgeois pour le cinema. Neue Visionen is planning to launch Der Bau in theatres at the beginning of next year. 

(Translated from French)