Julia Brechler
Un Certain Regard : “Cloud 9” by Andreas Dresen
German director Andreas Dresen makes his first appearance in Cannes with the Un Certain Regard feature Cloud 9, a love story between two older aged people.
A festival-circuit favorite having garnered numerous prizes for his films including Summer in Berlin (Best Screenplay at San Sebastian 2005), Grill Point (Silver Bear at Berlin 2001) and Night Shapes (Best Actor at Berlin 1998), German director Andreas Dresen makes his first appearance in Cannes with the Un Certain Regard feature Cloud 9. In a minimalist form, the film takes us into the intimate life of Inge who, in her mid-60s, falls head over heels for Karl, 76 years old, showing how love has the power to transform regardless of age.
Andreas Dresen shares the motivation behind the film:
“I wanted to tell this love story as if they were young people, because I was under the impression that this simply didn’t exist in film. I had always wondered why the aged in film and TV are allowed at most a sentimental look on life or halfway romantic and mild-mannered stories… Women of this age are allowed this kind of awakening much less than men are, and we wanted this woman to make a strong, non-compromising decision. The common clichés are turned upside down in this story. In the end, Cloud 9 is a film not only about love and sexuality between old-aged people, but it is also a very normal story about love and pain and how difficult it is to withstand the terror of love.”
Thierry Frémaux called to the stage director Andreas Dresen who he qualified as one of the leaders of the new young German filmmaking wave. “It’s not so easy to bring the entire film crew to a festival,” began Dresen. “In this case it was possible, because in this case it was only a small crew, a film family. We were only seven people behind the camera, in HD DV. It was a very intimate situation. We had no dialogues but we developed a script outline. There were only four actors playing, but they were all really great and I’m really happy that they had the courage to do this as you will see in the film.”
Lead actress Ursula Werner addressed the audience, “I’m very honoured and pleased to be here with you and I’m looking forward that you will be happy by the end of the screening too.”
