Erik Lehmann,

was born on February 6th in 1984 in Leipzig. He wrote “microsleep” in November 2003 and was shooting the film in July 2004 near his hometown Zwickau. Erik was student at Zwickaus Clara-Wieck-Grammar School till 2003. 2000/2001 he was exchange student at Brenham High School in Texas/ USA, finishing 11^th grade. He plays the piano, likes drama, political cabaret and directing, both theatre and film and he is member of the Children and Youth Theatre MondstaubTheater Zwickau since 2001. After school he made a social cultural year at MondstaubTheater, where he worked with children and youngsters doing theatre workshops. There he also wrote his first political-satirical cabaret-show as well as his first play for youngsters “Everything extremely well!” , what both got on stage.

What gave you the idea to write this script?

I wanted to tell a story about the phenomena of memories. The boy, I dedicate this film to, I never met personally, although if I know a lot of people from his surrounding and my whole family knew him. That made me quite sad, also in consideration of the way he lost his life. When I stood in front of his grave and I had to weep, even if I did not know him, I knew, I want to do something very special. 

Your film tells about a lot of themes?

I put a lot into this movie. For instance there is the topic of fears, what is a main part of the movie and what is fascinating me. The question, what scares us and why we asked ourselves far too little and the most honests regarding to this topic are kids. They show feelings much more open. Another topic was friendship, what I absolutely wanted to be mentioned. That is why I let it end sort of sad, to interpret friendship as a sort of illusion, what everybody lets go in his own direction and only is kept alive by memories.

Where have you found you crew?

We met at four seminars, what were part of our voluntary cultural year. I first asked Sebastian and Georg in March 2004 at the third seminar and the last seminar was full of preparation. And that is, why we had equipment and cutter from Dresden, cameraman from Leipzig and the director from Zwickau. Peter, who made the score, I knew since eighth grade and we always dreamed about making a film when we were boys. Moritz and Martin I got to know during my cultural year at MondstaubTheater Zwickau and chose them for this project.

How did you work with the boys?

It wasn’t that difficult to work with them, because we knew each other and I was leading their theatre courses for several times. So there was no kind of obstacle and the knowledge about theatre playing they had, was very useful. But sometimes it was hard to explain them the meaning and the destination of the project. The script was written in a very technical and symbolic way and themes like death and mourning are something very strange for boys this age. In the movie I wanted to have two really calm and deliberate acting characters. This was a great demand to the boys concerning their concentration and it was directed totally contrary to their temperaments. Even if concentration and discipline worked not that well on set from time to time, what was also because of the heat and the quantity of hour of shooting, I’m still really satisfied with the performance of the boys.

Was the camerawork planned that way you did it?

Partly. We drew a storyboard with over 50 pictures, which gave us a rough view of the scenes. The editing was planned that way considerable, but you make the pictures on set as you get the surrounding, and that’s often different to what you had planned. At the beginning of the movie the camera is very calm but when the boy gets his first fears and starts to run around the camera interacts and stays tuned. Georg made that pretty much by himself and found his own dynamism to shoot this pictures. The scenes seeing Moritz running around weren’t planned at all or drawn by the storyboard, so we made three different versions of material shot by Georg, Sebastian and me.

What gave you the idea to make a children’s movie?

I’m fascinated by that genre. A lot of my favourite movies are children’s movies or Coming-of-Age-movies. I think, it might not had worked with youngsters putting them into a field. Seeing them with a tear running down their face, it just would have been incredible and depressive. Kids do have some kind of innocence, an own world and that’s why I wanted beautiful pictures what might come most likely into a children’s fantasy, even if it is a sad topic. But I also wanted not to support a typical cliché of film kids or to direct the boys as standard kids.

Why does nobody talk in this movie?

There is dialogue. The two names are said and this in very different ways, what is supposed to reinforce the two characters. I did it mainly without dialogue, because I wanted to let pictures and music talk. Admittedly we also had no appropriate equipment or the necessary know-how for good dialogue sound. The existing dialect also might had been decisive for laughs, what would have been fatal in that movie.

What is your aim screening the movie?

I assimilated something very personal doing this film, what only can be shared with the spectators, when they are open for it. I do not want to lay on the agony and to force a personal fate to somebody, but those, who make their hearts open to the pictures can see a lot of own memories inside the story. After shooting I read this following sentence: “It is not about understanding and getting it, but about feelings and emotions.” That is exactly what I wanted. And I used a children’s movie as platform, because I wanted to show nice pictures seen through the eyes of a boy, even if he is afraid but finally beats his fears.

Maybe you do not want people understanding your film?

For me a film is a sequence of pictures and that’s why the pictures were supposed to transport a message not any text. That’s difficult, of course, and I put a lot of symbolism in it, too, what not made it easier at all. For example we had the change between an alive and a dead object, what stay behind as remembrance. Or the symbolism of colours dealing with black and red. So there is a lot to interpret into it and somebody who will be caught by the pictures will examine this, and somebody who does not have interests on that sees nice pictures at least. We always want to get the sense or point of everything. But I wanted a sad story, but focusing on the nice things. That’s the message.

Would you say this movie is your personal style?

It was my first short film. I think you can’t talk about style that far, also we briefed on other films, but I still tried to transport some sense. The film “Life is beautiful” by Roberto Benigni for example, for me is the best story about telling lies. There, a dad is telling stories made up from lies, to protect his son from reality. Grown up think this film is sad, children like this movie for the simple reason, that it is funny. And I can’t defend against the adult inside of me all the time, so I had to cry at the end of the film, but still left the cinema with a big smile. If a movie is able to create some feeling like this, it is an excellent movie.

Is there anything new planned?

Yes, it will be a movie with and for children again and I write the script right now and look out for more ideas. There will be a lot of visual guides again, what will not lead the story, but accompanying it. There also will be a clear plot, dialogues and some funny stuff and there will be more kids with different ages and specially directed characters. The story is very up to date and has a quite moral ending right now. At this point I change it all the time.