Szabó shoots part of The Door in Cologne
Cologne’s MMC Studios have had a busy autumn in terms of European co-productions. Last month, French writer-journalist Sylvain Estibal’s debut film When Pigs Have Wings was shooting there at the same time as German/Hungarian co-production The Door, the new project by Oscar-winning Hungarian director István Szabó (news), which will be released in Germany next summer by Piffl Medien.
After three weeks shooting in Hungary, the team relocated to Cologne to film the interior scenes (from October 13-29). They stopped off in the village of Hopfgarten, near Weimar, whose church fascinated the director, before going back to finish the work off in Hungary.
The €6m film is co-produced by Jenő Hábermann of Hungary’s FilmArt and by Berlin’s Intuit Pictures. It is based on the novel The Door by Magda Szabó (1917-2007), which was translated into 36 languages and centres on the relationship between a well-known tortured writer, Magda, and her old, humble servant Emerenc, who barely knows how to read and yet has much to teach the illustrious woman of letters.
In the film, co-scripted by the director and Andrea Vészits, Magda is played by German star Martina Gedeck (The Lives of Others [+see also:
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The Door is sold internationally by Bankside Films.
(Translated from French)
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