Cineuropa met up with French-German director Julian Radlmaier on the occasion of the world premiere of his latest film, Phantoms of July [+lee también:
crítica
entrevista: Julian Radlmaier
ficha de la película], playing in the international competition at the Locarno Film Festival. The filmmaker discussed the starting point for the fiction feature as well as the main influences underpinning it.

Cineuropa: Your movie’s plot is multilayered. Did you start from one specific character or symbol? If so, how did you develop the rest?
Julian Radlmaier: Actually, for the first time in my short career, I started my story from the town of Sangerhausen, which I immediately found very interesting. I had seen a photo of it and noticed there was a strange, pyramid-like mountain in the background. I spent some days in this region and discovered a lot of interesting elements that could have been woven together. Walking through the town, I began imagining stories. The first was about Ursula, a waitress juggling two jobs to get by, reflecting inflation in Germany and the strain of everyday life. The constant sound of music from the local music school also added another layer of inspiration, as I didn’t want just one storyline. This is a very German region with a strong right-wing presence, yet it’s also home to immigrants, so I wondered what life feels like there for someone who isn’t German-born, and I wanted to bring those perspectives together. Finally, I discovered the area’s cultural depth: the poet Novalis was born nearby, and instead of including him directly, I decided to add the character of Lotte, linking past and present.

What kinds of visuals were you inspired by? The film looks very elegant and classical in its approach.
This feature was a turning point for me, since my earlier works had a very different style: they were shot digitally, often with static, tableau-like images. For this project, I wanted something lighter and more fluid, so we chose Super 16 mm. My DoP, Faraz Fesharaki, and I wanted the camera to feel alive, to have an autonomous gaze and to discover things on its own. In this sense, we drew inspiration from Kira Muratova’s The Long Farewell, as we were struck by its lightness and poetry. We wanted the form, the cinematic language itself, to be surprising – not just the story. Often, we found our shots on location, rather than pre‑planning them, and this gave the film an almost documentary feel; we let the landscape guide us in shaping images that felt both spontaneous and intentionally artistic.

How do you think the audience reaction might differ between German viewers and international ones? Do you see this as a film that's particularly rooted in Germany?
I try not to think too much about the audience, otherwise it would be overwhelming because everyone comes with such different perspectives. What matters to me is not making films that feel closed off or exclusively “German”, as I find much of German cinema stuck in a world that no longer exists. Instead, I want to show the country as a place where different backgrounds intersect – whether it’s Iranian immigrants, people with Soviet roots or others. Themes like immigration, loneliness, class and economic struggles are universal, and I hope the film resonates that way. Our team itself was international, and the dialogue between our different perspectives also played a role in shaping the result.

In your mind, does your film belong to a particular genre or several different ones?
I don’t usually think in terms of genres, but I know what I’m drawn to. Humour is important for me, and when I find something funny in the writing, I tend to keep it. At the same time, I’m wary of satire. Reality often feels more satirical than anything I could invent, so in this film, I tried not to lean too heavily in that direction; I wanted to focus more on its poetic side because what really interests me is the mix of comedy and melancholy. I also like grounding the story in a very real place and time, while opening it up to more fantastical dimensions. I guess I’m drawn to contrasts: if a scene is leaning too far one way, I feel the urge to balance it out with another element.

What was the part that you were most worried about conveying to the audience?
I just hope I managed to make it feel like one cohesive film, rather than three separate short stories. Finding little details that would connect everything, certain motifs that would travel from one story to another, was very important to me. Nonetheless, while trying to do this, writing can become overwhelming because there are so many directions you could go, and the hardest part is knowing when to stop or which path to commit to.