After its premiere at the Max Ophüls Prize earlier this year, Bulldog [+lee también:
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entrevista: André Szardenings
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Cineuropa: Where did the inspiration for the story come from?
André Szardenings: I saw a Brazilian documentary about a particularly close relationship between a mother and son. I wanted to tell this story and so started to write the script. I did my research and spoke to the protagonists of the documentary. I then began to realise that the story wouldn't work so well for a German audience. What interested me the most was how the mother and son depended on each other. That is my main topic.

What do you mean, exactly? How did you adapt their story for the German audience?
The original story is about a son who was afraid to come out to his mother because she made him believe she was against homosexuals. Then, years later, after he confessed to her, she also confessed that she had actually been having a lesbian relationship for several years. I kept in the fact that the mother has a relationship with a woman, but I didn't want to make a film in which queerness was a problem.

Germans mostly know the Spanish islands as holidaymakers, and rarely as employees. Were you interested in this contrast?
I have family members who live abroad. I know people who emigrated after their retirement. In Germany, people often complain that when foreigners come to Germany, they stay in their communities. But the Germans do the exact same thing. This is why the mother in the film doesn't speak Spanish – only the son does. I wanted to show that this is real, too. Then it was also fascinating to shoot in Ibiza during the “low” season. Everybody thought we shot it during the pandemic, but it was actually before the lockdown. We saw this empty island even before it became a normal image. I thought it was much more fascinating to shoot during this time, when the hotels were being prepared, rather than during the “high” season.

So you shot on Ibiza?
Yes; we don't say it explicitly in the film, because I thought that it was not very important. We had two bungalows at our disposal. We stayed in one, and in the other one, we filmed. Everyone on site was really nice, giving us the freedom we needed. Funnily enough, I realised later on that in 1997, when I spent my holidays in Ibiza, I had stayed in the very same bungalow as the one we stayed in during the shoot.

Was the biggest challenge to recreate this intimacy between the characters?
I wanted the story to feel as authentic as possible, and a lot of this comes from the actors themselves. When I started thinking about the project, I had Julius Nitschkoff in mind as the protagonist. I studied his works in order to get to know him, and wrote the script for him. It was important for me to make a film that would be authentic and emotional. I wanted the audience to become one with the main character. We nearly didn't rehearse at all; we started directly with the shooting. This was also possible because I did the cinematography myself and could react very intuitively. There was no detour through a cameraman or camerawoman.

What was the biggest challenge in terms of the production?
We had a very low budget, which we already needed all of for the flights, the stay and the catering. Since we were a small team, each member did more than just one job. My producer was also the assistant director, for example.

What did you intend to express with the title of the film?
Bulldog is what I associated with the character of the son, the protagonist. The film is the portrait of this boy who looks a little bit buff, but who still runs around after his mother. I found this image of a bulldog characterised him perfectly. This is why he pees on a car at one point, for example.

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