We Are the Night

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Movie
Original title We Are the Night
Title lettering Wir sind die Nacht.svg
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2010
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
JMK 14
Rod
Director Dennis Gansel
script Dennis Gansel,
Jan Berger
production Christian Becker
Oliver Nommsen
music Heiko Maile
camera Torsten Breuer
cut Ueli Christians
occupation

Wir sind die Nacht is a German feature film from 2010 directed by Dennis Gansel . In the vampire - Thriller play Karoline Herfurth and Nina Hoss the leading roles. The film premiere took place on October 24, 2010 in the cinema in the Kulturbrauerei in Berlin , the cinema release in Germany was four days later.

Wolfgang Hohlbein wrote a novel based on the script for the film.

action

Lena is a 20-year-old Berliner who comes from a poor background. She keeps afloat with minor thefts and accidentally falls into the sights of the young inspector Tom when she steals from a Russian pimp. Tom, on the other hand, gets into a conflict of conscience because he should actually arrest Lena, but at the same time finds her very attractive. One evening Lena enters an illegal rave with the motto “We are the night”. There she meets the attractive Louise, who turns out to be the operator of the club and a centuries-old vampire. She is the leader of a female vampire trio consisting of her, the former silent film star Charlotte and the somewhat wacky Nora, who became a victim of Louise and a vampire during a love parade . Louise falls in love with Lena and bites her. Lena is now slowly transforming into a vampire and from then on has to deal with the curse and the blessing of her new, eternal life. On the one hand, she enjoys the luxury financed by Louise, the parties and unlimited freedom, but the excesses of party are usually followed by the thirst for blood and the lust for murder of her friends, who kill people practically every night without hesitation and leave a trail of blood behind them. Lena is disturbed by this casualness. Besides, she doesn't return Louise's love.

Meanwhile, Tom, who knows nothing about her transformation, is on her heels and tries to win her heart - while he and his police partner Lummer hunt down the mysterious murderers at the same time. Fearing for his life, Lena turns away from him, because Louise shows open jealousy of everyone Lena shows affection for. Tom, in turn, notices from Lena's strange behavior that she is hiding something from him and is also somehow involved in the series of murders. When Nora and Charlotte cold-bloodedly and unnecessarily kill two security guards on a night out while Louise just watches, Lena is actually done with the gang. But the Berlin police have now tracked them down. When the latter storms the vampire suite, the four of them flee in two darkened vehicles. However, Nora's car hits a lock in front of the hotel and breaks down. She gets out, but cannot reach the other car, which is prevented by the police from pushing back and picking up Nora by gunfire that hits him and lets sunlight into the car. Nora burns in sunlight, which is deadly for vampires. In a hiding place, Charlotte, who is meanwhile tired of life, breaks away from the group and chooses suicide in the rising sun after saying goodbye to her dying daughter, who, unlike her, has aged. There is an open conflict between Lena and Louise, as Louise blames her for Nora's death and the messy situation. Lena flees to Tom and reveals her vampire existence to him, which initially shocked Tom. Still, he sticks to her. But Tom's colleague, who has since found out that Tom is apparently covering one of the suspects, storms the apartment with a special task force and takes the two of them into custody.

Louise then storms the detention center and kidnaps Tom to give Lena a choice. In a disused tower of the Teufelsberg she waits for Lena, who should tell her that she loves her. Lena says the words, but Louise recognizes them as a lie and shoots Tom. Lena pounces on Louise to save Tom. After a hard fight, she can surprise Louise and throw Louise into the rising sun, so that Louise burns. When the police arrive, Lena and the seriously injured Tom have disappeared without a trace. When Lummel arrived at the scene, he quietly wished both of them good luck.

In an alternate ending, Lena bites Tom and also makes him the first male vampire in centuries and they escape together.

background

History of origin

The basic concept consisted of a vampire film that contained a love story and was supposed to take place in the Berlin club scene. Dennis Gansel wrote a three-page synopsis and called it "The Dawn", a love story between a young Berlin vampire and a young, normal man. At the premiere of Bernd Eichinger's Das Mädchen Rosemarie , Gansel saw the actress Nina Hoss on the screen and wrote the script for her. In 1999 he contacted the actress and presented her with the synopsis. Like Christian Becker, Hoss was enthusiastic about the idea and was very interested in participating in the project.

No production studio was interested in the story. In 2004 the film Creep with Franka Potente was released . The film flopped and seemed to prove that German horror films don't work. Dennis Gansel had almost given up hope and was working on his films Mädchen, Mädchen , Napola - Elite for the Führer and Die Welle . On the side, however, he continued to work on the script for "The Dawn". When Gansel's film version Die Welle was shown successfully in the cinema, Rat Pack and Constantin Film finally gave the go-ahead for a film adaptation of the vampire film. The reason for this was probably the hype that had been triggered by the filming of Twilight - Until (s) dawn .

However, Gansel found that the script for "The Dawn" had too many parallels to the international hit Twilight . The script therefore had to be rewritten. The author Jan Berger worked out the final version of the script and gave the film the title Wir sind die Nacht .

Casting

Dennis Gansel, Jennifer Ulrich and Max Riemelt at the Austrian premiere in Vienna

Dennis Gansel wanted Nina Hoss to be Louise in the film from the start. Ten years earlier he showed her the script for The Dawn . Hoss was interested and asked Gansel to get in touch as soon as the script was complete and the film should be shot. When the call finally came ten years later, she said yes and was cast as Louise, the leader of the vampire trio.

Gansel also wanted Karoline Herfurth to be there early on. He had already shot Girls, Girls with her in 2000 and had already given her the script for The Dawn , which he had in mind as the next project. Like Hoss, Herfurth was enthusiastic about the script, but was too young for the role of Lena at the time and could only have been considered Nora. Since the start of shooting was delayed by a few years, she was now cast as the main character.

Jennifer Ulrich already worked on Die Welle with her then partner Gansel. In an interview with MTV Home, she denied the rumors that she only got the role because of her relationship with Gansel. She had to go to auditions four times and eventually got the role as the vampire Charlotte, an unsuccessful actress from the 1920s.

Nora was perfectly cast with Anna Fischer in the eyes of producer Christian Becker , as she looks bright, petite and like a party girl.

Gansel gave the male lead to his long-time companion Max Riemelt , with whom he had already worked on three of his earlier films.

Cristina do Rego , who played Ulrich's role as best friend in Die Welle, can be seen in the opening scene in Wir sind die Nacht as a stewardess.

Filming

The film was shot in Berlin in autumn 2009, the production budget was around 6.5 million euros. The old Lichtenberg public swimming pool served as the backdrop for the disco . The swimming pool was not heated and therefore all actors and extras in the disco had to brave the cold. The exterior shots of the club were taken in the Plänterwald in the Berlin district of Treptow-Köpenick and in the Spreepark .

The Cumberland house on Kurfürstendamm was rebuilt by the film team for the hotel scenes . The vampires' nightly shopping campaign was staged in the Galeria Kaufhof on Alexanderplatz . The department store management initially wanted to assign a security officer to each team member. In the end, all members of the film crew were checked by a total of 15 security guards when they went out.

Lena's apartment should be a shabby prefabricated building. When it was discovered, however, that many of the prefabricated housing estates had meanwhile been renovated, a suitable location was finally found in Schöneberg . Lena's prey area was moved to the Zoo station. The demolished houses of the former GDR radio on Nalepastraße in Oberschöneweide were used for the scenes in a Russian brothel . Here, too, there was no heating and the actors were exposed to the November cold.

The actresses were exposed to warmth in Tropical Islands . The scenes in which the vampire women take an artificial sunbath were filmed here. After the shooting, parts of the beach had to be replaced because too much film blood had flowed in parts.

In December 2009 the team was shooting in the Tiergarten tunnel at Berlin Central Station. When traffic was running, only individual sections were temporarily blocked.

The final was filmed on Teufelsberg . Some of the Teufelsberg scenery had to be recreated later in the Babelsberg studio to shoot the scenes in which the vampires defy gravity.

The actresses loved the filming, especially the stunts. Many did the actresses themselves.

publication

The Apollo Kino in Vienna on the evening of the Austrian premiere of Wir sind die Nacht .

The film had its world premiere on October 14, 2010 at the 43rd Festival de Cinema Fantàstic de Sitges . The premiere in the Kulturbrauerei in Berlin followed on October 24th . Four days later the film started in cinemas across Germany and in German-speaking Switzerland. The premiere in Austria followed on October 29th. The film opened in French cinemas on December 29, 2010 under the title Nous sommes la nuit . In Germany, audience interest fell short of expectations. With around 40,000 viewers and 251 copies on the opening weekend, Wir sind die Nacht was not able to place itself in the top ten of the German cinema charts and reached around 105,000 cinema-goers in Germany by the end of January 2011.

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 14, 2011 . As bonus material, the DVD includes an exclusive making-of , alternative endings, a video diary of the director, a VFX making-of, as well as teasers and trailers. The Blu-ray also contains deleted scenes, two more making-of clips, b-roll, actor information, internet clips / shooting diaries and interviews. On July 14, 2013 ProSieben first broadcast the film on German free TV .

In addition, the film opened on April 7, 2011 in cinemas in Russia , Belarus and Kazakhstan . In the USA, it was released in selected cinemas under the title We Are the Night on May 27, 2011, before being released on DVD on September 20, 2011. In Turkey the film opened in cinemas on June 10, 2011, while in Brazil it was released directly on DVD on September 15, 2011. He also started in Japan on November 26, 2011. The film was also released on DVD in the UK in October 2012 . In the English-speaking countries, a trailer with English speakers was dubbed for advertising purposes. When it comes to DVD marketing, there was no synchronization; only German soundtracks with English subtitles are available.

useful information

  • Charlotte was featured at the premiere of her film Dr. Mabuse bitten by Louise. The actress of Charlotte, Jennifer Ulrich, was set in the original footage of the film via blue screen for the scene in which an excerpt from the film can be seen.
  • Karoline Herfurth and Max Riemelt already worked together on Dennis Gansel's first film Mädchen, Mädchen .
  • Originally a scene was planned in which the vampire ladies stand with Lena in the museum and recognize each other in the pictures. However, this scene has been deleted; the basic idea can be found in the opening credits, in which one sees pictures of events of the last centuries. For example, the vampire women Charlotte and Louise were present at the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Soundtrack

We Are The Night (Official Soundtrack)
Studio album by Heiko Maile

Publication
(s)

2010

Label (s) Ratside Records

Format (s)

Audio CD , download

Genre (s)

Dance , rock , techno

Title (number)

17th

running time

71:39 min

occupation see section track list

At the start of the film, a soundtrack with music from the film was released on CD. In addition to many pieces of music by artists from the field of electronic music that were used in the film, parts of Heiko Maile's film music are also on the CD. The complete film music with 44 pieces was published on Amazon for download.

Track list (soundtrack)
  1. "Self-fulfilling Prophecy" - Scala & Kolacny Brothers
  2. "In Our Eyes" (Antohny Mills Soundtrack Version) - Moonbootica
  3. "We are the night" - Covenant
  4. "Charlotte's Death" (Score) - Heiko Maile
  5. "Nightlife" - IAMX
  6. "Lena's Metamorphosis" (Score) - Heiko Maile
  7. "Cold Song" - Klaus Nomi
  8. "Escape From The Hotel" (Score) - Heiko Maile
  9. "Dull Dreams" - Xenia Beliayeva
  10. "Miserable Girl" - Soulwax
  11. “Deep in the night” - Dj Valero
  12. "IERS" - Dirk Blümlein trio
  13. "Land Of The Free" - Warren Suicide
  14. "Farewell My Child" (Score) - Heiko Maile
  15. "Pretty When You Cry" - VAST
  16. "Russian Whorehouse" (Score) - Heiko Maile
  17. "Big And Bad" - Gabriel Le Mar

Reviews

Dennis Gansel, Jennifer Ulrich and Max Riemelt at the Austrian premiere in Vienna

In October 2010, the German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the film the rating of Particularly Valuable .

“This film is perhaps one of the great moments of current German cinema production. In the vampire film genre, you are in competition with numerous famous precursors and quite a few cult films. The director Dennis Gansel has apparently achieved a great success. Technical perfection and outstanding performance contribute significantly to success. [...] In terms of quality, the film is also outstanding because the original fictional content is genre-genuinely enriched by fascinating film aesthetic forms and special effects and, to a certain extent, faded out. "

- Jury statement from FBW

“And so you are left a bit puzzled and annoyed after this actually pleasing, because it was the first noteworthy German vampire film in a long time: Because the film can be aesthetically convincing over long distances, but in its pretty glossy shell it has an at least questionable undertone, if not at all hides a directly reactionary message. "

- Rochus Wolff, critic.de

"[...] And yet" We are the night "is not just the umpteenth long-toothed epic chewed up again. It's (although those outdated props don't show up here) garlic and crucifix for the current vampire boom. By going back to the origins. At the same time, it fits in perfectly with Gansel's work. Again and again, his films are about seducing young people. In "Napola" it was the National Socialist master race ideology, in "Die Welle" it was a fascist school experiment. Here it is hedonism and youth madness. [...] “We are the night” is everything: an exciting vampire film that works according to all genre conventions. A female emancipation film (shot by a man). A great Berlin film in which the city not only serves as a backdrop, but becomes a cipher. And something like a real movie fairy tale: from a 23-year-old film student who has an original idea and a 37-year-old director who finally makes it happen. "

- Peter Zande, welt.de

"For Gansel this is" a classic story of a newcomer, reminiscent of the candidates from casting shows ". The fact that Louise and her friends (Jennifer Ulrich, Anna Fischer) understand their immortal vampire existence as a consumption and coke orgy makes them undead revenants of a hedonistic society in the maddened youth. Conclusion: Enjoyable, confidently staged " Sex and the City " -Periflage - until the bloody end. "

- Cinema

“Gansel proves to be an astonishingly skilled action director, be it in the breathless chases or in the virtuoso fight scenes in which the women do not take prisoners. All in all - supported by the strong cut - he sets a decent pace. The film is not boring for a minute until the showdown on the Teufelsberg. But the quieter scenes also work [...] The fact that the characters sometimes act over the top, the villain is disfigured by a thick scar, is part of the genre. Gansel is not reinventing it, he plays with the conventions with a light hand, complements them with original ideas and, with Berlin, offers a really memorable backdrop [...] "

- kino.de

Awards

literature

Web links

Commons : We are the night  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for We are the night . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2010 (PDF; test number: 124 446 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for We are the night . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ a b press booklet for "We are the night" , from June 13, 2010
  4. ↑ MTV Home from November 5, 2010 ( Memento from September 11, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  5. ↑ Weekend Charts Germany , mediabiz.de, accessed on April 15, 2011
  6. ↑ Film hit list January 2011 ( Memento from August 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Filmförderungsanstalt, accessed on April 15, 2011
  7. ↑ Start dates for We are the night
  8. ↑ Release dates for Wir sind die Nacht , June 2nd, 2011
  9. ↑ Report of the German Film and Media Assessment . Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  10. ^ A film review by Rochus Wolff on critic.de . Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  11. ↑ criticism in We Are the Night at welt.de . Retrieved March 9, 2011.
  12. ↑ Film review at cinema.de
  13. ↑ Film review by kino.de
  14. ↑ Sitges Film Festival Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, by Jalmari Helander, wins the Best Motion Picture , accessed October 18, 2010