EXCLUSIVE: Fresh from portraying Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Corsage, Luxembourgish actress Vicky Krieps takes on another iconic figure from Austrian culture in German director Margarethe von Trotta’s Berlin Competition title Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey Into The Desert.
Born in Austria in 1926, Bachmann is a seminal figure in the landscape of post-WWII, German-language literature for her work exploring the struggles of women to carve out a place in post-war society as well as her explorations of imperialism and fascism.
Von Trotta, herself a seminal figure in Germany’s cinema landscape, focuses on a six-year period in Bachmann’s life from 1958 when she was living in Rome and in an on-off relationship with the famous Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch.
When their relationship frays, in part due to Bachmann’s own demands that they are at once bound and free, the writer travels to the desert with her friends, the opera composer Hans Werner Henze and journalist Adolf Opel to regain her equilibrium and reconnect with her writing.
“It’s very difficult to do justice to such a versatile, complicated, even enigmatic woman and artist in a film,” explains von Trotta.
“That’s why I restrict myself to just six years of her life. The four years she spent with Max Frisch and the two years afterwards, when she suffered from their separation and was only able to ‘heal’ herself briefly by means of a journey to the desert with a younger man.
“In my view, Ingeborg Bachmann’s time with Max Frisch was an attempt on her part to live with commitment and freedom simultaneously. She was a confident woman, very aware of her significance, but she also knew that in the 50s and 60s, it was difficult for women to assert themselves or even be taken seriously.”
Sales agent The Match Factory has revealed the first international teaser showing Krieps in the role.
The actress describes the project as a gift.
“Margarethe and I are two women who are moved by the same things, and during our work together on this project, we were able to communicate very well across the generations,” she says.
“It was incredibly exciting. And fulfilling. It was fascinating to see how certain topics remain relevant down the years. Particularly with regard to this topic – women’s liberation – it was interesting to see women pulling together, as all too often we forget that we are not alone.”
Krieps is joined in the cast by Ronald Zehrfeld as Frisch, Tobias Resch as Opel and Basil Eidenbenz as Henze.
Producers are Katrin Renz at Zurich-based Tellfilm, Bady Minck at Amour Fou Luxembourg, Bettina Brokemper at Cologne-based Heimatfilm and Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu at Amour Fou Vienna.
