2023-06-17 17:43:19
Hanna, a wolf guardian in a Lower Austrian wildlife park near the Czech border, searches for her family’s past in “Das Auenhaus”. She finds them in the family’s former estate in South Moravia, the so-called Auenhaus, where the biographies of her mother and grandmother await Hanna – together with a dark chapter from the days of World War II.
It is a family trauma in the border area that the Czech-Austrian director and screenwriter Tereza Kotyk wants to tell in her film “Das Auenhaus”. “In the present we are living out traumas that actually have their origins in the Second World War, i.e. in the grandmothers’ generation,” explains the director. “So we don’t know what’s inside us from our ancestors.” The question of how to deal with it fascinated her, says Kotyk.
Wolf as a mystical “free spirit”
Kotyk, born in Prague and raised in Vienna, is no stranger to the material. Her own family history also took place on the Czech-Austrian border. Similar to the story in the screenplay, Kotyk’s family also had a house in the Czech Republic before the Second World War, following the fall of the Iron Curtain it was returned to the family.
“This film is regarding how boundaries are drawn and where I draw my boundaries,” says Kotyk. “The wolf is also one who always has to look for a territory and defends it to a certain extent, but is also a free spirit.” In the film he gives the family epic a “mystical” dimension.
Wolf should bring hunger
Acting takes over the role of the mystical wolf male wolf Etu. Like all wolves at the Wolf Science Center Ernstbrunn, Etu was bottle-reared and is used to people. But there are other reasons why Etu, of all people, was chosen as the main actor, says wolf trainer Lina Ober Lassen.
“Etu is rather intrepid,” says the wolf expert. It is also said that the presence of many people who set up and dismantle equipment does not bother him much. And also: “He just really likes to eat. That means we can rely on him that he really wants to take part,” says Ober Lassen. The wolves would play along mainly because there is a lot of food for them in the scenes, explains the wolf trainer.
Photo series with 3 pictures
Women’s Perspectives on War and Displacement
For the producer Claudia Wohlmentioned, who following “Die Dohnal – Frauenministerin, Feministin, Visionärin” (2019) and “Elfriede Jelinek – Letting the language off the leash” (2022) is now producing another feature film with strong female roles, it is important that war and expulsion are told from a woman’s perspective. “In my opinion, this is something new,” says Wohlnamen.
The Hanna actress Jeanne Werner, who is also on stage at the Landestheater Niederösterreich, sees it in a similar way. According to Werner, women are strong because they have to be. “These are normal, flawed women who are being forced to confront this horrible past. And then of course they get strong.”
Filming for “Das Auenhaus” will continue until June 23 in Lower Austria and the Czech Republic. The film should be finished by the end of the year and will be presented at the Berlinale in February 2024. It should then be shown in local cinemas.
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