Prof Dr Anke Kahl from UNISERVICE TRANSFER meets the director and professor of audiovisual media, Erica von Moeller, at the Cinema in Wuppertal Barmen.

New situations, new themes, new possibilities;
that's what film storytelling is all about

The director and professor of audiovisual media design in practice, theory and mediation, Erica von Moeller, reaches one thing above all with the medium of film: people.

"I am very passionate about my film work," says the Cologne-based lecturer, who caused a sensation with her last film, which she shot for television in 2014. Sternstunde ihres Lebens is the title of this film starring Iris Berben, which deals with the anchoring of equal rights for men and women in the German constitution. Awarded the 2015 Marl Media Prize for Human Rights by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, among others, the film deals with the lengthy process of convincing the SPD politician Elisabeth Selbert, who tirelessly pushed for equal rights for women in the Parliamentary Council.

Historical films, and once again strong women in them, are her subject, because "someone like Elisabeth Selbert," says von Moeller, "who played a massive role in shaping our lives and the Basic Law, has been completely forgotten." At this point, you can already verbally sense her passion for this genre, and when she goes on to say that "you want to portray someone who fights against a lot of resistance", she is describing her protagonist exactly. "For my film work, it's always nice when the starting point is an authentic figure, such as a historical person," she explains. "Then comes the process of fictionalisation, i.e. we take a few passages, condense the material and then tell it to the point where she made this big decision to go into battle, to formulate Article 3 in a completely different way."

Filming location Wuppertal: the San Francisco of Germany

Her film was also made in Wuppertal, a city that Moeller has come to love. "I think Wuppertal has an incredible amount to offer architecturally," she enthuses, "including its geographical location. It's also a bit like San Francisco in Germany. We have so many views and vistas here in Wuppertal, which is particularly appealing." She and her film team finally found what they were looking for in Barmen.

"We were looking for a backdrop that tells the story of 1948/49. The film is set in this period." The Barmen town hall, which is very similar to the Museum König in Bonn, the actual location of the consultation, with its wonderful forecourt, offered the director ideal opportunities. She has also made use of these in her other films, which she has been making with groups of students since 2011 in her role as Professor of Audiovisual Media Design at the University of Wuppertal. "There are also crude and remote, dark corners and staircases here," she says. "We now have a story that is very much anchored in realism. And that can also be told here."

Erica von Moeller, who has completed both an academic and two artistic degrees, knows the demands of the film business inside out and appreciates the university as a learning environment. "Our professional field is now so specialised that a sound education in both theory and practice is indispensable for practising the profession. The protected space of the university offers this in a special way".

The Combinatorial Bachelor is a gift for film storytelling

This is also where interdisciplinary work comes into play. She therefore also welcomes the Combinatorial Bachelor's degree and emphasises: "The second subject often gives students deep insights into a topic. They can develop these audiovisually in the film department to create a film." In her opinion, this is an advantage over film schools, as the topics can be dealt with differently thanks to the combined BA.

She can only underline Steven Spielberg's quote 'Good films can change people's thinking', because "we very consciously made my film "Sternstunde" as a television film because we were trying to give the topic of equal rights a different, broad public. And then a film like that has five million viewers when it is first broadcast. You can't reach that many people through any other medium. Only TV films can do that."

Digitalisation means finding new platforms

She does not demonise the television landscape, on the contrary, she sees the efforts and hopes for imitation successes once the broadcasters understand where the ratings on platforms such as Netflix come from. "We all have to think together about what digitalisation means for storytelling and what it means that films are no longer only shown in cinemas and on television." The communication scientist sees the advantage of these new media created by the internet in bolder storytelling and taking up other topics that appeal to younger generations. "We can develop exciting films from this," she believes, "which are now not being realised for fear of losing ratings."

There is no recipe for cinematic storytelling

She firmly rejects the idea that students can put together a film like a recipe. "The cinematic process is incredibly demanding. There are so many disciplines that play a role. Material development, preparation, shooting, image design, staging, post-production: all these influences have to be intertwined. It's always a complex process to condense the effect of the film and the theme, and that involves all the trades together. There are always many people involved in the film process, with lots of great ideas. And this usually has to be brought together in the person of the director. I also try to instil in the students that you have to be curious, open and courageous." Von Moeller cites an example from the filming in front of Barmen Town Hall: "We had planned a great shot with a crane as the opening sequence. But it was windy and the crane couldn't move. So we had to change quickly. We then came up with a tracking shot on the ground in which we very slowly move away from the town hall. And we realised that the shot was visually much more effective and also something very special. Even when shooting a feature film that has been planned for a long time, it's often a matter of thinking about how we can find a replacement at short notice. And this curiosity and openness to constantly engage with new situations, new themes, new possibilities - that's what film storytelling is all about. Especially when something doesn't work out, you come up with amazing solutions."

A film project under realistic conditions

She also achieves special solutions in her biennial university film projects, in which she has students produce and experience a feature film in realistic set situations. "This means that 20 students shoot a film, divided into functions. This year, we have six directors, three cameramen, four lighting technicians, five set designers and we are shooting on location, i.e. at locations outside the university." The main filming location was a rented flat in which a forbidden love story is told. "And then we spent a long time looking for a flat, which was then remodelled and refurnished. In the process, we assigned a set design to the characters with great precision and at great expense. That's what I do with the professional set designers I work with. And then we had a 10-day filming phase. We start at 8 a.m. and often shoot into the night." Von Moeller sees teamwork as the most important realisation and also the greatest learning effect. "You also have to come to an artistic agreement as a team. The film has to have a style, an aesthetic. This process naturally harbours potential for conflict. But when they overcome this and come to a result, it strengthens them in their artistic stance and their self-confidence." Her conclusion: "In the directing profession, you have to communicate your vision."

But no matter how many thoughts are involved in an artistic project, the critics are always already in the starting position, especially when it comes to film. And she knows how to deal with that. "It's always painful when a film goes through the critics," says von Moeller, although she gladly accepts historical criticism, but reserves the artistic freedom to use any tricks that lend a film a different legitimacy.

Why do women have such a hard time in directing?

Women directors are understaffed, at least in television. Active in film politics, the media artist endeavoured to conduct a study back in 2014, which came to the sobering conclusion that the directorial position in German fictional television, which is produced with public funding, is actually always 10% female directors and 90% male directors. In contrast, and this is particularly bitter, the training situation is almost equal. "So we train just as many women as men. But somehow the female directors disappear and don't get any job opportunities, especially in primetime programmes."

In the meantime, the study seems to have had an impact on the broadcasters and their makers. As in other sectors, there is a sensitivity for the gender-equitable distribution of commissions. Nevertheless, women are still often not trusted with the high budgets of primetime films. Says von Moeller: "A Tatort costs 1.5 million, a historical film often over 2 million euros. But one example of how women can handle money very well and create artistically outstanding films is Maren Ade. She is an outstanding director who has won many national and international awards with her film Toni Erdmann. These female directors exist. Things have improved a lot in the cinema sector, but the television sector is of course where female directors can continuously gain experience."

Von Moeller also sees a further difficulty in the family-unfriendly working phases of the industry. "You are only approached as a director, even in the television sector, if you have a certain CV. A CV that shows they have feature film experience. And of course it's difficult to build that up in a phase of life that goes hand in hand with starting a family. Our working hours in the film industry tend to be 18-hour days, we often have 6-8 weeks in a row and are then no longer available for a family at all. I know that too. The film industry also needs to find a solution to this." The director is certain that the film narrative of women gives society a very valuable, different perspective, a different narrative style with a different sensibility, which also reveals another view of the world to the male audience. This is why von Moeller is annoyed by the situation and says, "with this knowledge, we are training the same people, and our training is very expensive, we are letting this potential lie fallow. That's totally idiotic from an economic point of view."

Climate change, a five to twelve project

Surprisingly, the connection between directing and teaching has even resulted in a new film project. "I'm currently working on a research project that has actually grown out of the university and has catapulted me into a new thematic field. I'm not making a historical film, but a so-called near-future subject matter. This emerged from my university work and I therefore find it a very fruitful alliance."

The idea came about during a symposium in collaboration with the Folkwang University in Essen two years ago. Students developed projects for the publication by author and futurologist Jorgen Randers entitled "2052" to visualise what the world could look like in thirty years' time. "And that's when it started working in me. I suddenly realised that this is a topic to which I want to devote all my life energy, to make people understand that it's five to twelve," she says and sees this as a major future communication task for herself. Together with a research institute, she first translates forecasts into scenarios and uses them to develop living spaces in which stories are then set. A completely new interdisciplinary series format is being created here in collaboration with a Berlin author.

"We think about what the German-speaking world will look like in 2050. There are many films that tell science fiction in a utopian future. We are telling a story in a very near future. What challenges will we have to face? We are initially planning a six-part fictional series." But that's not all, the communication scientist is also thinking in other dimensions. "At the same time, because it is a research project, we have planned a symposium with scientists. Here we will show both the state of research and our first steps in developing stories from data," she continues, "so we will show the audience what these realistic scenarios look like. What kind of world will we (very likely) have to live in as a result of increasing climate damage?" This project will be rounded off with an exhibition and a website, "which will show what kind of communication we will have and how information could be communicated that reports on climate change or climate damage in 2050."

In this way, she combines teaching and research with her second, artistic mainstay and knows that "it is urgently necessary to deal with climate change on film now so that it reaches many people and hopefully creates a different awareness among them."

Professor Barbara Rüdiger, a mathematician from Wuppertal, recently said in a transfer discussion about a dance project she had realised: "I think there are many more points of contact between art and science than people imagine." Erica von Moeller has found another answer to this.

Uwe Blass (interview from 22/03/2018)

Director and author Erica von Moeller studied fine arts in Mainz and communication sciences in Frankfurt before graduating in film at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. She has been making films in various genres and formats since 2001. As a media artist, she develops exhibition projects at the interface between moving image, space and sound. After various teaching assignments in Cologne, Berlin and Trier, she has been a professor of audiovisual media design at the University of Wuppertal since summer 2011.