Where did the idea for SUMMER STORM come from? 

Thomas Wöbke: 

The idea came to me quite a while ago. In fact, several years ago it occurred to me that a story like this simply didn't exist in German cinema, apart from Wolfgang Petersen's 1977 TV production "DieKonsequenz" mit Jürgen Prochnow, which had been banned in Bavaria. I remember that my mother had been totally upset about this back then. Several years later, when I saw the film and, in particular, the"scandal scene" of two men kissing each other, I found this censorship totally idiotic. A lot has changed since then, of course. But save for Heiner Carow's feature film "Coming Out," which was produced by DEFA in the late 1980’s, no German film since then has treated the topic of "being gay" in such a story. 

Jakob Claussen: 

When gays turn up in German films, they are usually drug addicts, call boys and drag queens. We wanted to offer a different viewpoint, one that's much closer to reality and has been so for quite a while now. All that was missing was the impulse. 

Thomas Wöbke: 

That impulse came when Marco Kreuzpaintner showed us a rough draft of BREAKING LOOSE (2002) that made it clear to us that he was very talented. I had already been impressed by his short film for the Sueddeutsche Magazin "Jetzt" (“Now”) REC – KASSETTENMÄDCHEN - KASSETTENJUNGS, but I was even more thrilled with BREAKING LOOSE since it already had a certain commercial appeal. When we decided that Marco would direct our film, we read lots of books in search of subjects on which we could base our script, and in which gayness would be treated as something normal. But practically all the books we read on this topic focused heavily on sex. What I had in mind was something more like BEAUTIFUL THING (1996) and MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE (1995). But it was difficult to find such a topic. Until Marco finally said: "Then let's just tell my story." And that's just what we did. 

Jakob Claussen: 

That went relatively fast. Marco began by writing an exposé. Then we found a co-author, Thomas Bahmann, and they wrote the script together. The financing also went quite fast, with X-Verleih and ProSieben jumping in right away. 

What was it like to work with Marco Kreuzpaintner? 

Thomas Wöbke:

It was great. He did his job amazingly well.

Uli Putz:

He captured the characters with great precision. To do so, he spent lots of time with each of the actors and explained to them how he imagined their particular character.

Thomas Wöbke:

He was fantastic with the team, and everyone formed a big family from the very start. We knew most of them anyway from previous productions.

Jakob Claussen

Others, such as cameraman Daniel Gottschalk, had already worked with Marco in BREAKING LOOSE. Gottschalk is a very delightful, very conciliatory person. It was good to have him around for this quite demanding shoot...

What particular difficulties did you have to cope with? 

Uli Putz:

At first, it was very hard to find locations. When we finally decided on the federal state where we would be shooting, we then had to find an appropriate lake region – in the summer! An exclusive shore, just for us – that was obviously going to be very hard to find, considering the nice weather.

Thomas Wöbke:

It was only at the last minute that we got permission to shoot at the Bever Dam in the Bergisches Land. It was the last motif among the ones we had to choose from. If we hadn't gotten it, we would have had to postpone the production for a year. But there were more problems yet: for example, we wanted to make aerial shots to show where the different camps were located. After all, practically the entire film takes place at the lake and around it, and people want to know where everything is. But it is forbidden to fly over the Bever Dam. Fortunately, we were able to get a flight permit at the last minute through the help of a farmer from whom we had rented the locations. And we were lucky, since the sun was shining on that day, the last day of the shoot. We shot the film in late August, and since it had been so hot for such a long time before, we suspected that it would rain on the first day of shooting. And it did.

Jakob Claussen:

Last summer was so hot that water became scarce in the area and had to be taken from the dam. That meant that when we arrived on the set, everything looked different than what we had expected. And the rain that fell afterwards couldn't compensate for this.

Uli Putz:

In the evening the tents were pitched up close to the water; the next day they were ten meters away! And from then on it rained almost every day. When we wanted to shoot the storm scene, we really had a storm - which made it much too dangerous to shoot. We had to schedule another day of shooting and work with wind machines and helicopters to create an artificial storm. Which then gave us another problem with flight permits.

Thomas Wöbke:

Another problem was having to keep a grip on our 18-man-strong team of actors. Fortunately, they all shared the same hotel during the entire six weeks at the Bever Dam. They had quite a wild time...

Jakob Claussen:

… it was like some kind of totally demented youth hostel...

Thomas Wöbke:

But the youth hostel character was very important, since that was exactly the atmosphere we wanted to show on screen. Everyone grew much closer that way.

Uli Putz:
And since they were all at the same place all the time, we were able to react to each new situation and change of plans must faster.

Do you think audiences will be able to identify with SUMMER STORM? 

Thomas Wöbke:
I think that there are more and more young people who don't have a problem with homosexuality. And it's no longer so that you can pin point gays in the street. The stereotypes aren't the only ones around anymore.

Jakob Claussen:
For the individual, it's still a problem of course. It's still a challenge to deal with one's homosexuality. But you don't have to hide it anymore today. In the course of our research, we heard incredible stories of men who had to leave town after their first gay sexual experiences, to mention only one example. Today, in contrast, gays are a genuine market that's just beginning to be tapped: there are gay travel agencies, gays have been discovered by advertising, big banks have employees specially trained to take care of gays...

Thomas Wöbke:
Yet at the same time there are still many people who feel repelled when men get intimate with each other. In the end, however, homosexuality is not really at the center of our film.

Uli Putz:

It's about a young man who realizes that he is in love with his best friend and not with a girl. And as such,it's a story that addresses everyone: for who, at some point in his or her life, has not fallen in love with someone who did not return this love?