Alzheimer's from a child's perspective

I had the idea for the story 15 years ago. My grandmother also developed Alzheimer's and started to forget things. Her character changed. She was always a very disciplined woman, but then she did more and more things just because she wanted to. That was a pleasant change for me at the time. It brought us closer together. For my mum, on the other hand, it was very difficult to see how my grandma, her mother, had changed so much. The different attitudes my mum and I had towards my grandma's illness inspired me to write the script.

The film script actually came first. At the beginning, I only wanted to tell the story from a child's point of view, because a child experiences and sees things differently. During the writing process, I then tried to tell the film from three different perspectives - from the grandmother's, the mother's and the daughter's point of view. However, financing the film proved to be very difficult. So I said to myself: I'll turn it into a children's book. After the novel was published in 2016, I then wrote a new version of the film script in which the children's perspective came back into focus. That's how I came back to the original idea. It was a long process.

There's a hairdressing salon near my house where an elderly hairdresser used to go with her husband. Her husband died suddenly, but her granddaughter came to the salon every day after school, watched TV there or went to the flat above the salon. I thought it would be nicer if the grandmother in the film was a bit younger. That way we could show a woman who was still working.

I met Mischa back in 1995 at the Cinekidfestival in Amsterdam. She was in her last year of film school. At the time, I was making a series about young children, which was shown at the festival. Mischa asked me if I could read through the script of her graduation film. That's how it all started.

Yes, we had Beppie Melissen in mind right from the start. We googled her back then - and at the time she was about 55 years old, which was too young for the role. But that's the advantage of long-term financing. (laughs) When we shot the film, she was already over 66 and I knew her from the theatre. She later appeared in many comedy roles in the Netherlands.

I think it's an important film for both children and adults. Cinema-goers can see the film on different levels - but the core message always comes across: Namely that strokes of fate, such as a dementia diagnosis, can bring people closer together. The film is suitable for children aged eight and over.

When we were talking about potential ways of distributing the film, we came up with the idea of inviting school classes to cinema events together with retirement home residents.

The scene is actually in the book too. When I googled the central station, I found it really beautiful. It was also about the train journey from Holland to Denmark - and Hamburg was right on the route. However, the book ends earlier than the film. For example, the nights that Romy and her grandmother spend in the house in Denmark are not in the novel.

I think it's very easy to explain to children what the story is about. It wasn't that difficult. I think the hardest part is the acting. The role of Romy was her first role. It wasn't her goal to become an actress. She came to the test screening of another film I made in 2017 together with a daughter of a friend of mine. Vita was in the audience as a test viewer. When our casting for Romy's Salon started, I thought of her and invited her.

Tamara already knew the main station. When I saw it, I was thrilled - we could do anything here. The cast and crew also really liked Hamburg. I got to know Hamburg at different times of the year. We started looking at locations in March 2017, when it was still snowing. Carsten, the scout, called me twice and told me that he couldn't get through because there was too much snow. We have pictures from March of us standing in the snow. But when we were in Hamburg for the shoot in May, we had wonderful weather.