Alain Gsponer films Preussler’s Little Ghost

by Bénédicte Prot

20/06/2012 - Since Monday, June 18, the majestic castle of Wernigerode in Saxony-Anhalt has become the set of The Little Ghost, a family film by award-winning director Alain Gsponer (photo - whose last feature, My Words, My Lies - My Love [trailer], was released in December 2009).

This film project, produced in Munich by Claussen Wöbke Putz Filmproduktion and supported by the FFA with up to €650,000, is an adaptation of The Little Ghost, a novel that the author for children Otfried Preussler wrote in 1966 and that sold over 2.3 million copies. Preussler’s books are a regular source of inspiration for filmmakers. His book The Robber Hotzenplotz was adapted to the big screen by Gernot Roll (2006), Krabat and the Legend of the Satanic Mill [trailer] by Marco Kreuzpaintner (2008) attracted over a million German cinema-goers in 2008, and his Little Witch is a recurrent character on the big screen.

The Little Ghost, whose characters have been decorating German children’s bedroom walls for decades, already inspired an animation film by Curt Linda in 1992. But in his film, Gsponer will only use animation for some characters. The main characters are to be played by the sinister-looking Uwe Ochsenknecht, Herbert Knaup, and Aykut Kayacik. Anna Thalbach will lend her voice to the little ghost, while Wolfgang Hess will lend his to the wise ghost, Uhu Schuhu.

Universum is set to release the film in Germany on October 20, 2013, on the exact date of Preussler’s 90th birthday.

(Translated from French)