We had discovered the German director Andreas
Marschall with the excellent TEARS OF KALI, a film shot
in 2004 and released in DVD in France in 2009 ! Since then we have not heard
of him until we met him in the alleys of the Cannes film market 2011. Good news,
the director is about to finish its new opus, a strange film named MASKS.
Eric Dinkian: Can you tell us what you have done since TEARS
OF KALI ?
Andreas Marschall: I wrote screenplays for companies
and for my own projects. I wrote about 3 or 4 different screenplays for horror
films in order to get financing. It was planned to be bigger budgets. One
of them was TEARS OF KALI 2. I tried to get funding, it didn't work
in Germany because you never get funding for horror films there. I still have
2 projects in development with a bigger company. One is a cannibal movie and
the other is a supernatural mystery movie based in Italy. These 2 films have
no funding yet. For this reason and because it's been a long time since my
last film, I decided to shoot another film in between. It's called MASKS.
Is it finished ?
It's almost finished, we did the editing and sound effect.
The sound check is not completed. I think by the end of June it will be completely
finished. I wanted to show it in Cannes but the sound wasn't finished on time.
It will be in Cannes next year. It's a homage to giallo films. I shot this
film without any funding. I just went to a drama school in Germany. I said:
"give me your school for the holidays (laugh). I need your actors,
actresses and I need your school to build sets". And they said: "OK".
We started to shoot during summer holidays.
How can you achieve a movie without any funding ?
Giallo
movies normally contains lots of small scenes. It's not just a straight story
line. You need different locations, extras. Fortunately I had the school so
I could go in again and again. I shot during 2 holidays, summer and winter,
I shot again and again little scenes and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle
(laugh), it was really adventurous!
The current mood is around zombie flicks,
hardcore violence. Why the giallo?
Nearly everybody at the moment does
torture porn. I like these films, I like to watch them but for my own film
I did not want to do the same thing. I thought it would be better to do something
special, different. The reason I did the homage giallo
is that normally you cannot do this with a big budget, it's not really fashionable
at the moment. As it was self-produced, I had complete control. I also had
this school where I could do what I wanted. This was my chance to do a homage
to giallo! When we launched the trailer, everyone said: "oh I want to
see it", so I said to myself "Ok maybe it's something people want…"
The trailer is very effective, very disturbing, not because
of the violent scenes but because of those people wearing those strange masks.
Were you searching for this kind of effect ?
It's got a few splatter scenes but less than in TEARS
OF KALI. It's got more atmosphere, mystery and this feeling of the 70s
horror and thriller films. It may be creepy too. The idea with the mask is
that there are acting techniques with it. When someone puts a mask it changes
the personality. This is an acting technique that we presented in the movie.
What reaction do you hope from the audience
?
The reaction that would make me proud would be the fascination
for the atmosphere. The number one aspect in this film is the atmosphere.
When I was young I saw all these giallo
movies especially Sergio
Martino's films. It was always like a dream. It wasn't straight, logical
stories but it was more a dream with rooms, spaces and music. I was really
fascinated by this and I tried to recreate this feeling.
You said earlier that the German industry
does not support horror movies. What do you think about France ?
Well, I think France is paradise (laugh). Whenever there
is a French horror movie we get to see it, like HAUTE TENSION
or MARTYRS. MARTYRS is my favorite
movie. There's a lot of creative freedom in France for this kind of film I
think. In Germany it's almost impossible to think about a project like MARTYRS.
In Germany you cannot say you shoot a horror film, instead you say you shoot
a mystery drama. Anyway it's very difficult.
Is there anything else you want to say to our readers ?
I hope people will have the chance to see my movie, to enjoy
it and have the same fun I had when I watched the giallo
movies of the 70s. It's a time travel tour, I hope it works. I hope to be
in a festival in France with my beautiful actresses! France is THE country
in Europe for horror films at the moment.
Official website : www.masks-themovie.de
