Moves You Made: “Me and the Loonies”

March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of independent filmmakers. Today: Me and the Loonies.

Cast and Crew

Ludwig Trepte (“Generation War”), Julia Hartmann, Ceci Chuh, Thomas Bestvater, Markus Eberl, Patrick Mölleken & Julia Bremermann

concept & screenplay by: Markus Staender & Colin Zech
produced by: Markus Staender & Daniela Pilz
cinematography: Chris McKissick
directed by: Johannes Kizler

“Me and the Loonies” was shot as part of my diploma projects in serial writing at film school in Germany. I’m one of the two writers of the movie. It was always supposed to work as a potential tv pilot as well a short film, because there isn’t really a German tv slot for a format like this.

Logline: In this dramedy a small-time crook pretends to be insane in order to sidestep prison, but the looney bin is where the trouble only begins — until he realizes that maybe these “loonies” can actually help him…

Here is the 38 minute dramedy Me and the Loonies (German language with English subtitles):

I asked each of the filmmakers in this month’s series to answer this question: What inspired you about this particular story to make it a movie? Here is Markus’ response:

Inspiration: I really love stories like MASH that use a fundamentally tragic setting or theme and find the lightness or comedy in it, since I believe it mirrors life best. Sometimes even the most tragic moments in life evoke laughter and a comedy without something to say behind it remains superficial. I believed this approach might enable us to tell a story about people with psychological problems without getting bleak. Also, I liked that our main character learns that the distance he held towards them harmed him the most and that you can find friends even in the most unlikely of places. 
 
Anecdote: We thought we absolutely need a fence around our set (which was not an asylum), so as to evoke the feeling of really being trapped for our main character as well as the audience. Since there was a steep slope behind the hedge, where the fence had to be, we had to build this whole construction under the fence itself, which we also had to build. Finally, it stood there — quite shakily, but nevertheless. Of course, a huge storm had to break loose that caused an even more shaky tree to collapse of all things onto our fence. But the bigger surprise was that it kept standing. So we sawed this damn tree off of our damn fence in order to shot the scene the next night. Of course, it had to rain so heavily we couldn’t shoot the outdoor scene. We shot the scene in a storeroom instead and nobody ever missed a fence.

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Tomorrow: Another Movie You Made.

If you have been involved in the creation of a film and want to participate, please email me with details. Note: Need an embeddable trailer or movie.