24/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: The pair behind the series based on a real-life scandal discuss the genesis of the show and its production, as well as its political implications

Jan Schomburg (left, © Christine Fenzl) and Dustin Loose (© Tom Wagner)

On the occasion of the premiere of the series Other People’s Money [+see also:
series review
interview: Jan Schomburg, Dustin Loose
series profile] in the Berlinale’s Panorama strand, creator and showrunner Jan Schomburg and director Dustin Loose (who worked alongside Danish filmmaker Kaspar Munk) spoke to Cineuropa about their approach to dealing with the real-life Cum-Ex scandal in their fictional show.

Cineuropa: Why did you think this story would be appealing to the audience, and how did you come across it?
Jan Schomburg: When Michael Polle, one of the executive producers, came to me during COVID-19 and asked me if I knew anything about Cum-Ex, the only thing I somehow remembered was that some rich people had robbed the state, but I didn't know any details and was a little reluctant to start to research it. Then, I started to read some stuff, and I was really shocked by the scale of the fraud. Very early on, I thought about the fact that some of the characters from the real world felt like Shakespeare, Ernst Lubitsch or Adam McKay characters, and I really enjoyed turning the story into fiction.

In the showrunner notes, Jan said: “Depending on how you see the world, you might want to call this a comical tragedy or a tragic comedy.” How do you both see it?
Dustin Loose: I would say it’s a silent, romantic grotesque [series].

JS: I think it's really different depending on the day. Sometimes, I get really angry and frustrated, and sometimes, when I'm in a better mood, I find it very funny, strange and absurd. But yes, “grotesque” is probably a good way of putting it.

What kind of ideas did you have in mind for your main anti-heroes, Sven Lebert and Dr Bernd Hausner? What was your stance compared to characters like Jordan Belfort from The Wolf of Wall Street?
JS: When I started writing, I told the producers that I had one rule: I didn't want to show villains in a sexy way. I think we managed to do that because I feel like we showed them in a Dostoyevskian way, kind of driven by something bad. Apart from that, there is also this weird philosophical and emotional emptiness in the middle, which I really don’t understand. Some people get all this money, take it to some account in the Caymans, and then don't actually do anything with it. Why are they even doing that?

DL: We didn't want to show it as something the audience should necessarily like. Also because the reality isn't as glamorous as you might think, because when we really dug into the Frankfurt offices and banks, the interiors were so sad. There is no Wolf of Wall Street in Germany. So – and it might be the cliché that the international world has of German bankers – they don't do coke or meet up with prostitutes. It's all really efficient and dry. They do their business, then they go into their kitschy homes, drive their boring cars, and that’s all. So, we thought we had to be a bit more pushy, more glamorous, because otherwise, no one was going to believe how bleak the real offices that inspired the show really looked.

The production values of Other People’s Money are impressive, and it has a huge scope, covering many European cities. How long was the shooting process? What were the main moments you would highlight?
DL: Pre-production began in August 2023, followed by shooting in January 2024, which lasted around 80 days. We filmed in four countries: Germany, Austria, Denmark and Croatia. The funny thing is that we ended up recreating London in Berlin, Frankfurt in Vienna and Spain in Croatia. I managed the German-speaking unit, while Kaspar oversaw the Danish-speaking one, and we only met after filming was complete. We also had three different editing rooms, which added to the number of creative voices that participated in the project.

You decided to go for a very refined look, with some “pop” inclusions. What were your visual guidelines? Was the final result in line with the initial idea?
JS: Yeah, there's a certain kind of pop to it that came mainly in the editing. The on-screen text, for example, only came up later as an efficient and rapid storytelling tool.

DL: You know, the final result was better than the vision we had along the way. It’s the result of different voices coming together, as so many people were involved in reaching the same goal.

The series has premiered very close to the German elections and has sparked some rumours because of its links to real events. What is your opinion on that?
JS: As we all know, our chancellor was somewhat involved in this case, but personally, I think the problem is much bigger than him. What I would like audiences to take away from the show is that there are people out there, some very rich people, who are influencing legislation and shutting down the state authorities. There is also a way of fighting it, and we have portrayed it, by showing journalists, state prosecutors and tax workers. They are really the heroes of our democracy because they are preventing us from getting robbed by the banks.