In Paternal Leave [+lire aussi :
interview : Alissa Jung
fiche film], directed by Alissa Jung and which has just premiered in the Generation 14plus strand at the 75th Berlinale, Leo (Juli Grabenhenrich) is 15 and she’s never met her father, until now – she decides to track him down. Paolo (Luca Marinelli) lives all alone next to a beach in northern Italy. They don’t have anything in common – they don’t even speak the same language. But Leo is not the one to give up. We talked to the filmmaker about her perspective on family, her approach to her protagonists and the casting process.

Cineuropa: Paolo tells Leo you can’t get to know anybody by interviewing them – and yet here we are. Why did you want to show a kid that’s so proactive? She doesn’t wait for anyone else to make things happen.
Alissa Jung: Girls are often portrayed as weaker somehow. I don’t see this in my own environment. Young women are so brave. They are honest, stand up for themselves and confront people with their emotions. Leo goes there and explodes, like a little bomb in his life. We are all human beings; we make mistakes. It’s fine. But it would be good to have Leo force us to take a closer look at ourselves. 

She’s brutally honest, that’s for sure, but it’s hard to “reunite” like that. You take time with their relationship in the film. It doesn’t happen overnight. 
I needed to be as honest as possible. They do get to understand a lot in the end, but in a quiet, interior way. Life is more complicated and more complex than the “and now they will live happily ever after” storyline. These are still massive steps, however, because accepting things is the hardest part before changing them. 

There are many absent parents here, not just Paolo. We only hear Leo’s mum on the phone, and her new friend’s father is this invisible, violent presence. 
I’m interested in the relationship between parents and children. There can be so much love, so much support and so much hurt. Few people can support you as much – and hurt you as much – as your parents. It goes both ways: I’m a daughter and a mother, so I know it. I wanted to focus on Paolo and Leo. It’s not a story about her parents reuniting, for example. Still, for me, her mother is absent because she works. Also, she’s a German mom, so she has a lot of trust in her child [laughs]. It doesn’t mean she’s absent in an emotional way. Leo is a cool girl. She wouldn’t be that cool if the mother wasn't there for her. 

These two need to find a common language, literally and metaphorically. Do you think it makes this situation even more complicated?
They are already strangers to each other – then, on top of everything else, they don’t even share the same language. I’m living partly in Italy, so it was quite clear I’d go there. Then I found the place where we ended up shooting and I just loved it so much. I love places that only seem to have two seasons. In the summer, there are thousands of people, enjoying the beach and the sun, having fun and parties and eating ice cream. In the winter, there are 200 people left and it’s so isolated. I liked this for him, as a character. He’s there, trying to focus on his life. And then she arrives, disturbing the silence he was looking for. This place is a bit like him. It seems so closed off. She keeps hammering on and on, and he’s not opening.

Was it scary to put so much weight on such a young performer? You really follow her lead. 
I had to fight for it a bit, but I wasn’t afraid. I did a lot of youth theatre before, working with kids and young adults. Then the casting director asked me: “What does she look like? What’s her hair like?” And I was like: “I don’t know.” I knew the energy I was looking for and I knew Leo’s age. When I was doing my research, I found out many people go on a similar search when they’re 15 or 16. You want to understand certain things, so you try to find your parents. Juli never acted before, but there was just something about her. She doesn’t do anything she doesn’t feel like doing. 

Sometimes, she feels like the grownup here. Paolo admits he stayed away also because of shame. He didn’t want to disappoint her. You love him, you hate him. He’s struggling so much throughout this whole film.
When I started to write, I stayed much closer to Leo. It was easier to understand her. In my first draft, he was a bit of a villain. But nobody’s born an asshole, there are no good guys and bad guys. We are all struggling to do our best and sometimes, we are not able to achieve that. You still hate Paolo sometimes, but at least he’s trying. I wanted him to be lovable and despicable at the same time. That’s how we all are.