29/06/2017 - Brechtien expert Joachim Lang mixes literature and biography in a frenzied satire starring Lars Eidinger, Tobias Moretti and Hannah Herzsprung

For the 120^th anniversary of the birth of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) next year, the all-time expert on this figure, Joachim Lang, who directed the Brecht Festival Augsburg for years (up until last year), decided to throw himself into his very first feature film.

Mackie Messer - Brechts Dreigroschenfilm [+see also:
trailer
film profile], filming on which took place from the beginning of March through to mid-May in Baden-Württemberg and Belgium, and which is currently in post-production, is the culmination of a long-nurtured dream: to adapt The Threepenny Opera by the great German writer grand (Dreigroschenoper being the original title in German, hence the title of the film) by superimposing the masterpiece, which is charged with Marxist critique of the capitalist world, with the turbulent task that Brecht and his associates had of bringing it to the stage, as well as the resistance from the film industry to plans to adapt it for the big screen. 

The film is a mix of backdrops of rough areas of London in Victorian times and the crazy years in Berlin, as well as real and fictitious Brechtien characters. Playing the writer of Mr Puntila and his Man Matti is Lars Eidinger (Clouds of Sils Maria [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Charles Gillibert
interview: Olivier Assayas
film profile], Everyone Else [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maren Ade
film profile]), who is joined by Tobias Moretti (Macheath the gang boss), Joachim Król (Peachum), Hannah Herzsprung (Polly Peachum), Claudia Michelsen (Mrs. Peachum) and Robert Stadlober, who plays composer Kurt Weill.

The film is being produced by Zeitsprung Pictures (Cologne) with satellite broadcaster SWR, in co-production with Belgian company Velvet Films, which made the film eligible for the Tax Shelter to secure funding from the DFFF Federal Fund (which provides over €1 million in production aid) and the MFG Baden-Württemberg Regional Fund (€500,000). International sales of Mackie Messer - Brechts Dreigroschenfilm are being handled by Global Screen.

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