{"id":160688,"date":"2026-09-06T19:22:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/160688\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T19:22:28","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:22:28","slug":"september-5-director-working-on-berlin-set-historical-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/160688\/","title":{"rendered":"‘September 5’ Director Working on Berlin-Set Historical Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSome of the main breakouts of Swiss cinema in 2026\u2014and the few years that precede it\u2014share one striking commonality: they are either entirely in English or feature large chunks of English. Think Petra Volpe\u2019s Locarno-winning \u201cFrank & Louis,\u201d Damien Hauser\u2019s festival darling \u201cMemory of Princess Mumbi,\u201d Denis Rabaglia\u2019s buzzy \u201cButterfly Stroke\u201d and, of course, Tim Fehlbaum\u2019s lauded historical thriller \u201cSeptember 5<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the date that names his award-winning film, Fehlbaum joined \u201cQuiet Land\u201d director Ursula Meier and \u201cErosion\u201d helmer Michael Koch at the Venice Production Bridge<\/a> \u2013 where Switzerland<\/a> is a country of focus \u2013 to discuss this very phenomenon in a panel titled: Beyond Borders: English as the New Language in Swiss Cinema? Moderated by Variety Italy and Middle East Correspondent\/Rome Bureau Chief Nick Vivarelli, the discussion honed in on the benefits and challenges of shooting in English in Switzerland today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFehlbaum revealed that his next project will take place in Berlin and be shot in both German and English. \u201cIt\u2019s set in Germany, and it\u2019s historical, but it also has an American perspective on it. It\u2019s always a question of how much will be in German and how much will be in English. By changing one character to a person who doesn\u2019t understand German, you suddenly have much more English, and it\u2019s much easier to finance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMeier relayed her current experience producing \u201cQuiet Land,\u201d which is part of this year\u2019s Venice Gap-Financing Market. The English-language film will star Bill Murray and L\u00e9a Seydoux, with a story set in Montana but shot in Alberta. The director is currently in pre-production, with plans to shoot next year. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s interesting for my work to tell a bigger story, and everything in the U.S. is bigger,\u201d she said when asked about the reasons for shooting in English.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a great challenge for me,\u201d added the writer-director of penning the script. \u201cMy English is not so good, and I had a year to work on [it]. We wrote the script in French, and then it was translated. We followed [the translation process] [very closely.]\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director added how much she \u201cloves U.S. actors,\u201d recalling working with Gillian Anderson on her Oscar-shortlisted \u201cSisters.\u201d \u201cIt was so great to work with her,\u201d she said. \u201cI like how [American actors] embody characters. It\u2019s very physical.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKoch recently had the experience of working with a major American actor himself, having just shot \u201cErosion\u201d with lead Peter Sarsgaard. The drama will reunite the director with the non-professional actors of \u201cA Piece of Sky\u201d for a film observing the dynamics between a foreigner and the local Swiss farmers in a small mountain village. It was Fehlbaum who made the bridge between Koch and Sarsgaard, following their collaboration in \u201cSeptember 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor me, this choice to shoot with an English-speaking actor was, from the beginning, a creative choice,\u201d emphasized the director. \u201cIt was, in a sense, the concept of the film, also. Unlike my previous film, which was shot with only non-professionals and chose a very specific mountain world from the inside, I wanted this time to turn it around and look with the eyes of a stranger to this world. It was clear from the beginning that it had to be the eyes of a foreigner. The second thing that intrigued me a lot was to put a famous actor like Peter together with nonprofessional actors from the Swiss mountains, which sounds like a really weird combination, but it was something I wanted to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker interjected to say he does not believe English to be the new language of Swiss cinema, but that it is certainly \u201ca part of it.\u201d Working in a different language was a \u201cvery interesting experience\u201d for Koch, who noted how, when verbal communication is limited, other creative forms of interaction arise. \u201cThis was the interesting thing to observe: how people from different worlds come together and share something beyond verbal communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u201cFrank & Louis,\u201d courtesy of Sundance Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tHaving a major American actor as the lead also changed the financing process for Koch, who picked up on Vivarelli\u2019s metaphor to say it felt like the film \u201cfelt more like a Ferrari\u201d financing-wise. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit more [money] you have to get, but it\u2019s also easier. It went quite fast, I have to say. It was also possible because [Sarsgaard] really wanted to [make the film], otherwise, we couldn\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFehlbaum made a key point when looking back at his experience of shooting several films in English: \u201cIt has to come from the story.\u201d He recalled being told by producers he needed to make his feature debut, \u201cHell,\u201d in English, as it was a post-apocalyptic sci-fi. \u201cIt was before Netflix, and people told me I couldn\u2019t get it financed.\u201d The director felt the choice didn\u2019t make sense for the film, and trusted his gut. The results proved his choice correct, with the film doing very well domestically and internationally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFor his follow-up, \u201cThe Colony,\u201d Fehlbaum decided to shoot in English despite the script not quite calling for it. The lukewarm response to the film confirmed the director\u2019s thesis that it only makes sense to make a film in English if the choice also makes sense diegetically. That was a very clear call with \u201cSeptember 5,\u201d which was told from the point of view of American broadcasters in Munich during a hostage crisis in the 1972 Olympics.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director also highlighted how English offers a much wider vocabulary to writers, especially those who are German-speaking. \u201cThe English language, compared to German, [has] three times as many words,\u201d he said. \u201cIn scriptwriting, you always want [scripts] to be short. In English, it\u2019s cool that you can use just one word when in German you\u2019d have to write a whole sentence. For subtext, English is better. In German, [words are] very specific.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Fehlbaum warns writers and directors of the dangers of rushing to technology, especially AI, to take on the task of translating. Recalling a meeting with a translator who told him AI is taking on their positions on jobs such as translating scripts and dialogue on set, the director emphasized how great an experience he had with a seasoned linguist on \u201cSeptember 5.\u201d \u201cWe first wrote [the script] in German and it was clear that we would get a translator on board. He not only translated [the script] but had a different perspective and made it much more American. It\u2019s important to get authenticity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for the challenges, all three directors brought up the difficulties of having to communicate in their second language with actors when under the overbearing pressures of being on set. \u201cI realized the language barrier is much bigger than I would\u2019ve thought,\u201d said Fehlbaum. But Koch offered a positive counterpoint: \u201cThere\u2019s also a nice thing about that. Because then [actors] are really challenged to think about: what does he mean? So they start to participate in this process also.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd there\u2019s also the fact that Switzerland is a country already built on the idea of multiple languages, with German, French, Italian, and Romansh as the nation\u2019s official languages. In that context, all three filmmakers agreed that, while English films are on the rise, the idiom is just another card on their table\u2014and Swiss directors are eager to play their hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of the main breakouts of Swiss cinema in 2026\u2014and the few years that precede it\u2014share one striking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,190,75375,75376,4505,14709,75377],"class_list":["post-160688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-berlin","tag-germany","tag-september-5","tag-swiss-films","tag-switzerland","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-venice-production-bridge"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117225727642216030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}