The SRJC Fall Cinema Series welcomed German writer and director Hendrik Hölzemann to speak about his film “Off Beat” on Nov. 3 at Ellis Auditorium. During the question and answer sessions, Hölzemann discussed film school, his experiences as a filmmaker trying to get movies produced in Germany and his character development process, including how much of himself trickled into the characters of the film.
With messy, sandy-blond hair and dressed in a casual white button-up and grey jeans, Hölzemann sat draped over his chair and talked about his four years in film school and the importance of building relationships with other student directors, camera operators and crew. Hölzemann sold his first script “No Regrets” while still in film school.
“I told them, ‘I’m directing it or nobody else is directing it. I’m not just going to sell you the script. I want to do the movie,'” Hölzemann said. “I didn’t sign the contract for the screenplay before it was all finished. The first time I was really careful not to give away my ability to make it the way I wanted to.”
Hölzemann also discussed his writing process, and sometimes lack thereof.
“I have a process which I’m trying to get rid of. My normal process is to watch [horrible] TV series, which are really bad, for, like, two or three weeks. Then when I can’t stand it anymore I start reading good books and think ‘I can never ever do anything like that.’ Then when I’m tired of that I start writing a journal and just write, like, ‘this is all so bad, and it’s never going to happen,’ for, maybe like, a couple of days. I’m really trying to get better on the discipline angle because it really works. If you sit down and work four hours a day, which is not too much to ask, if I at least sit at my desk for four hours and do nothing, it feels so much better.”
Unlike the Hollywood studio system, in Germany the government and television stations are major financial backers. According to Hölzemann, most films in Germany are produced with the intention of putting them on television.
“The background was always, ‘If you don’t do it the way we tell you, you’re not going to make it. You’ll never make another movie in this county,’ and I just didn’t listen,” Hölzemann said. “I had this feeling…that if I try to creep into other people’s heads and do it their way, I’m going to fail. I always had the feeling that I had to do this my way.”
“Off Beat” follows a 20-something paramedic named Crash who is attracted to the life-and-death struggles of strangers and grapples with his own childhood trauma. Chance and fate are central themes; Crash meets his soulmate trying to resuscitate her boyfriend after a drug overdose.
The film resonated with many members of the audience. A former paramedic applauded the realism of the paramedic scenes. A man who had suffered a head injury connected with the way the main character, also a head injury victim, felt the passage of time. Hölzemann revealed that he had been a paramedic as part of his compulsory government service and that he had also suffered a head injury.
The audience was divided on how to interpret the ending, and Hölzemann couldn’t have been happier.
“I love that,” Hölzemann said. “That’s really good that you can do one movie and people come to different conclusions, which probably has to do with their own lives. So there’s no right or wrong, I think. There are some inclinations that I have, but there’s no use telling them. It’s great what you think. It’s in there.”
The Fall Cinema Series continues with a screening of “Mulholland Dr.” on Nov. 17 and “Roger and Me” on Dec. 1 and will conclude with a screening of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” on Dec. 8. For more information visit http://www.petalumafilmfest.org/home/Cinema_Series.html.