Background Information

Every year I make at least one movie with my students during a school project at my school. This film project has been around for 12 years now and I run it together with my colleague Tobias Schumann.

Something that excites me about the creation process of this film is the fact that all areas of my life are flowing together. Creative visions are implemented by pupils, teachers and parents of pupils and a film is created that unfolds its impact beyond a mere school project and can be seen worldwide. This is kind of overwhelming. For me, it’s equally fascinating that people I meet in everyday work situations in completely different “roles” suddenly become characters I’ve invented.

The inspiration for the film was a short story of the American author Karen Russell, called “ZZ’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers”.

The story is about a summer camp for teenagers in Florida’s swamps. There they are treated to overcome different sleep disorders.

However, only this basic idea made it into the movie. The plot and also many of the people are very different from the original story. Of course, the place has changed as well: we drained the swamp, and instead chose a castle as our therapy institute.

It’s a great honor that we were able to win Tom Quaas to play in the movie. Tom is a professional actor and works at the Dresden State Theatre. In addition to theatre productions, he has played in several “Tatort” films (a popular German TV crime show) and in Edgar Reitz’s “Heimat” Trilogy (an epic movie about a family across several generations). His professional contribution in the film and during production were extremely valuable to me and it is with great respect that I look at the actor’s profession.