Pauline Roenneberg enters post-production on Kalter Hund
by Teresa Vena
- The German filmmaker has been shooting her first fiction feature, a dark comedy mostly relying on improvisation by the cast
Kalter Hund (lit. “Cold Dog”) is the working title of a black comedy by German director Pauline Roenneberg. A Kalter Hund is a traditional, no-frills German dessert, but a real dog also plays an important role in the plot of Roenneberg’s directorial fiction debut. To find out more about the precise implications, potential audiences will have to be patient a little longer: the film is now in post-production, having completed the rough cut, and is entering the sound-mixing and colour-grading process.
Owing to its innovative working method, the post-production is surely going to be an essential part of the making of the movie. The cast acted based on a beat sheet and not on a proper script. Their lines and performances were therefore improvised. The shoot generated an abundance of material, also including footage from different rehearsals that were recorded. Together with cutter Amparo Mejías (Cotton Queen [+see also:
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Roenneberg has so far gained considerable experience in directing and writing different series formats (such as Farm Rebellion for Disney+). Seeking a documentary approach and using the actors’ abilities to improvise are important ingredients in her working method. For Kalter Hund, she joined forces with Felix Bärwald, with whom she owns the production company Milk Pictures, based in Bavaria. It's also in this area that the shoot for the film took place over 22 days in April and May of this year.
As for the plot, it goes something like this: on the morning of his 100th birthday, Fanny finds her grandfather dead in his bed. In order to uphold the family’s perfect image, the clan tries to cover up the patriarch's suicide in front of their esteemed guest. They are forced to stage an absurd charade, but despite all of their efforts, everyone finds out. There is no time for sadness, since meanwhile, someone has stolen grandpa’s last will and testament. A bitter inheritance feud breaks out, and old power dynamics are turned upside down. There is a shaman healer involved, too…
The cast of this dark comedy about unresolved family secrets and trauma mixes more experienced actors with newcomers and a strong female ensemble, such as Corinna Harfouch (The Boy Who Owns the World, Die Ironie des Lebens, Dying [+see also:
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Kalter Hund is a production by Milk Pictures in collaboration with Construction Film and ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel. The funding was secured through Filmfernsehfond Bayern (FFF Bayern) and the Deutscher Filmförderfonds (DFFF). A festival premiere is being negotiated, while the German theatrical release is planned for autumn 2026. Weltkino is the distributor for the German-speaking region, and a world sales agent has yet to be found.
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