German actress-turned-director Natja Brunckhorst is presenting her newest comedy, Two to One [+lee también:
entrevista: Natja Brunckhorst
ficha de la película], set in East Germany in 1990. After its premiere at Filmfest München, the film will be released in cinemas in Germany by X Verleih, in Austria by Filmladen and in Switzerland by Filmcoopi. We spoke to the director about her approach to depicting the setting of the GDR and about the cast of the film.

Cineuropa: Why did you want to make a movie on this topic?
Natja Brunckhorst: When I read that all of the GDR's paper money was stored in a tunnel, I could immediately see the story in the cinema and imagined a heist movie. It's a real story, as absurd as it sounds. But that also meant I could do a lot of research, and that always helps me. I was able to talk to a lot of people about the time period. I also felt the need to make a film that you can laugh at, that has a certain lightness to it – a kind of “arthouse feel-good movie” with a happy ending.

If you depict a certain historical period, there is a danger of falling into clichés and stereotypes. What was particularly important to you in this respect?
There are already a lot of images of the GDR that are stored in people's minds. Did this kind of wallpaper or clothing really exist in the GDR just because we've already seen it in ten films? It was important to question this and to talk to people who experienced the reality. We also had a production designer who grew up in the GDR. Plus, we looked at a lot of books and photos of the time that show how people lived. I wanted to tell a story of heroes, and this also meant that we didn’t want to poke fun at the costumes or the hairstyles. Sometimes people in historical films look like they're wearing wigs; I wanted the people in the movie to look good.

What was the significance of the colour concept and the lighting?
We wanted to avoid the cliché that the GDR is always portrayed as somewhat grey and foggy. When I was in Halberstadt, where I also wrote the screenplay, it was in the middle of a very hot summer. When I did some research, I learnt that it was also a very hot summer in 1990. I saw lots of pictures of courtyard parties, of naked children bathing in bathtubs. That made me decide to make it a summer film. 

Where did you shoot the scenes that take place in a bunker?
The original bunker where the money was stored back then is the GDR's Komplexlager 12 in Halberstadt. I went there and had a look; it was a tunnel gallery that was 300 metres long, 8 metres high and full of money. Unfortunately, I can assure everyone that there wasn't a single banknote left when I arrived [laughs]! The electrics and other installations in this tunnel had also been removed. That's why we looked around for an alternative, and there is a second tunnel gallery. This one was bought in 1990. The owner locked it up and kept everything intact. It was a gift for us to be able to film there.

Were you inspired by existing people when writing the roles?
There were no specific people I knew who inspired me, but there were two photos I found during my research and which, since then, have hung on my wall. One shows an old woman sitting in a backyard in East Berlin, a real working-class woman. That was a model for the character of Käthe. And then, I also had a picture of a man having a drink in a pub. He's also wearing a great jacket in the picture. This became the model for the character of Markowski.

You have a fairly prominent cast. How did it come together?
It was important to cast the three main characters. They turned out to be Sandra Hüller, Max Riemelt and Ronald Zehrfeld. This triangle was at the centre of my efforts, so I sent the script to the three of them, and they all liked it. They also know each other and finally agreed. That was a gift. Once these three were set, the other roles were added: Ursula Werner, who was a star in the GDR, in the role of Käthe, and Peter Kurth as Markowski, for example. That was another a great stroke of luck.

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