The decisive impulse for Katrine Eichberger and Nikolas Mühe’s own project came after they watched a movie. The couple recall how they felt when they saw Stuck by US director John Painz for the first time. The story of a man suffering from agoraphobia and therefore not being able to leave his New York City flat got under their skin. They got permission to do a remake and thus started working on their first feature, The World Outside. Painz himself is supporting the project as an executive producer, alongside Eichberger and Mühe, who are taking care of production duties themselves. The couple adapted the script to take place in a German setting by transferring the story to Berlin, and they are shooting it in the German language.

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The journey started in 2018, when the couple began their background research into the illness of agoraphobia and wrote the script. Eichberger herself has a personal link to the topic and was able to process some of its aspects through the film. Interviews with other sufferers were conducted and served to enrich the background material. It took two years for the team to find collaborators, funding and sponsors. After that, COVID-19 hit, and then the war in Ukraine started, causing economic uncertainty worldwide, thus making it harder and harder to find financing. Nevertheless, Eichberger and Mühe didn't give up, and decided to gather their own personal funds to secure the production by founding their own company, Telling Stories Productions GbR. Shooting followed and took place during March, April and August 2023 in Berlin. The drama is now in post-production.

At the centre of The World Outside is Liz, a 40-year-old woman who has not been able to leave her Berlin flat for more than a year, as she suffers from severe panic attacks. She mostly manages to cope with them, but then she gets an invitation to the wedding of one of her best friends. This is the motivation she needs to try once again to overcome her fears, and so she starts remote therapy.

“Liz is representative of all those people who suffer from a mental illness that restricts their lives; she should be a multi-layered character who, in addition to her quirks, fears and injuries, also has the capacity for joy, and is loveable and humorous. Her trauma and pain find relief in small rituals, such as baking cupcakes, but also through the nature of her sexuality. She has deep feelings of guilt, a lack of self-worth and a lack of self-love. By confronting all of this, she can finally let go, forgive herself and heal,” goes the description of the movie.

“We want our film to reach people and to make them think: about the importance of mental health and self-love, and how important it is to forgive yourself. We want to inspire, entertain and arouse emotions. The movie should make the audience laugh and cry, and leave them with a feeling of hope and courage for everyday life,” say Eichberger and Mühe.

Team work is at the core of the project. Besides Eichberger and Mühe sharing writing, producing and directing duties, 50% of the crew was female, and it brought together people from more than 15 nations. Eichberger stars as the main character. She has acted in several films for cinema and television so far, such as The Last Image, Elbow [+leggi anche:
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scheda film] and The Color of a Chameleon. On the latter, she was also a co-producer, and she directed her first short film, The Origin, in 2022. Nikolas Mühe is a sound engineer and sound designer, who worked with Eichberger on her first short film. Among his other important projects are the series Sløborn, and the features Snowflake and Ronny & Klaid as well as several episodes of the TV show Tatort.

Eichberger is joined in front of the camera by a diverse cast, including Anke Reitzenstein, who plays the protagonist's online therapist and is an experienced dubbing actress; US musical actress Sidonie Smith, as the main character's friend; and German-Iranian thesp Javeh Asefdjah (Sprengstoff). Other roles are played by Joel Cederberg (Wunderschöner), Austrian actor Kevin Brand (Woman of the Dead), German actress and comedian İdil Baydar, and Berlin-based Melanie Toth. The technical and artistic crew behind the camera includes Nuno Martini, responsible for the cinematography; Camila Belen Escudero and Susanne Retter as make-up artists; and Ilir Mulaj as the composer.

The World Outside is a production by Telling Stories Productions GbR. It does not yet have a distributor or sales agent attached. The production team is working on securing a festival premiere before releasing the film officially.

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