Graduation film "ISTINA" wins Student Academy Award

ISTINA (truth)

When around 200 people are involved in a film production, it doesn't necessarily sound like a student graduation film. But anyone who has seen "ISTINA (Wahrheit)" can imagine the effort that goes into every single minute of the film. In January 2022, the four students David Marius Lorenz (Script), Christian Siée (Production), Tamara Denić (Directors) and André Stahlmann (Visual Design) came together at Hamburg Media School to work on their final project: In "ISTINA (Truth)", a photojournalist is threatened by right-wing extremist groups in her Serbian homeland and flees to Germany with her daughter. But after a short time, she faces strong hostility here too. "When we started working on the project at the beginning of 2022, it was initially just about a German journalist. However, we then decided to set the story in Serbia for geopolitical reasons. As an EU accession candidate, Serbia has long been a political hotspot where around 95 per cent of the media is controlled by the state. At its core, our story is about topics such as 'freedom of the press', 'hostility towards the press' and 'fake news'," says Tamara Denić, who has family in Belgrade herself.

For the script, the film team devoted itself to extensive research, went to demos and shot an initial documentary, which is compulsory at HMS before the actual film is completed - and was later even broadcast on the Phoenix channel. Almost all of the events in the film happened in reality in one way or another. The final book was then proofread by several journalists and other experts in order to tell the story as authentically as possible.

The HMS team finally filmed three days in Belgrade and ten days in Germany in August and September 2022. A large demonstration scene was filmed at a shipyard on the outskirts of Hamburg in the Altes Land region, while the main protagonist and her daughter live in Hamburg Wandsbek. Other scenes were shot on ferry 62, at the fire station in Hamm, in Altona, Bergedorf and the Pony Bar.

And even if you might not realise it from watching "ISTINA (Truth)": But VFX effects were also used in post production. For example, the newspaper editorial office in Belgrade, where the photojournalist works, was actually filmed in Bergedorf. As a result, all the windows and the view had to be digitally replaced afterwards. "The post production was extremely time-consuming and - like the whole film - would not have been possible without the great voluntary work of the crew and generous sponsors. A large part of our budget went on the filming abroad. Travelling, accommodation, technology - it all costs money. The demo scenes, including Bengalos, which we shot at a shipyard in the Altes Land, were also very cost-intensive," reveals Executive Producer Christian Siée. But in the end, all the hard work paid off: the graduation film was honoured with the Audience Award at the Max Ophüls Prize and also made it into the final three films at the BAFTA Awards in Los Angeles. And now it has received the bronze Student Academy Award.

HMS graduate Ilker Catak has already taken home the gold award for his graduation film "Sadakat" in 2015 and is now a German Oscar candidate with "The Teachers' Lounge". A good sign, we think. Anything is possible.

Those who follow

The starting point for the story of "Those who follow" was a newspaper article about the Frankfurt SEK from 2019: "The special unit there was disbanded after the police officers had been sharing right-wing extremist posts in an internal chat room for a long time. We found this very exciting as a basic idea and thought about how we could spin a story around it," says Script Writer Nick Buckenauer. Together with HMS graduates Frederic Kau (Directors), Laurian-Luis Schymura (Production) and Alexander Gruber (Visual Design), he began working on the script in spring 2022, which was accompanied by extensive and difficult research.

"It wasn't easy to get into police circles, as of course hardly anyone wants to talk about such incidents," says Directors Frederic Kau. But after several weeks, the film team actually managed to speak to former police officers who were involved in the Frankfurt case and lost their jobs as a result: "We got in touch via a journalist from Frankfurt who had reported on the case at the time. After we had written back and forth a few times, I then met with one of the police officers in a café and spoke to him for around three hours. He hadn't told me his name - I only knew that he was wearing a chequered shirt. The meeting was extremely important for us to get a feel for these secretive people," says Directors Frederic Kau.

After two months of research, the team began filming in Hamburg in August 2022, which lasted around two weeks. "We chose the most authentic locations possible for the filming. For example, we filmed on Hansaplatz, which is known for its high crime rate, and on Steindamm. It wasn't easy, as many of the local people naturally didn't like the fact that we were walking around with our cameras," says DoP Alexander Gruber.

However, one of the most elaborate scenes in the film was to be a raid scene by the SEK unit, in which several special forces storm a flat in a perfectly orchestrated manner. For this, the HMS team sought external advice from Teamwork Filmservice CEO Jörg Gennun, who is not only a distributor of police props but used to be a member of the GSG9 himself. "We were very lucky to have Jörg on board for our project. He plays the squad leader in the scene and spent an entire day rehearsing the scene with us. We wanted to film the access as a planned sequence without editing and stay close to our character the whole time," says Director Frederic Kau. And anyone who sees "Those who follow" will quickly realise that this worked out pretty well. Incidentally, the scene was shot in a vacant flat in the Bille power station, which had to be completely refurnished for the shoot and transformed into a drug distribution centre.