“This project was a passion project for me,” German director Alice Agneskirchner tells BDE of her feature doc Come With Me To The Cinema (a world premiere last weekend as a Forum Special). The film tells the story of Erika and Ulrich Gregor, the ardent cinephiles who launched the Arsenal Cinema in Berlin and established the International Forum at the Berlin Film Festival.
When the Forum started in the early 1970s, the festival itself was in crisis after jury members in 1970, under jury president George Stevens, had protested against the inclusion of Michael Verhoeven’s anti-Vietnam war film O.K. in official selection because it was “anti-American.”
Amid accusations of censorship, the Festival was abandoned and no Bears were awarded. From its inception in 1971, the Forum not only provided a platform for movies which were too radical for Berlin’s main competition. It gave the festival back some artistic credibility – and arguably kept it alive.
Agneskirchner has been involved in cinema in Germany for more than 30 years. She grew up “in this business knowing that there are the Gregors.” She visited the Forum every year. She met the couple when she was still a film student and has stayed in touch with them ever since. Even after Erika and Ulrich retired in 2001, she continued to meet them at other festivals.
“We became friendly. I always had in mind what they know, what they did, how they brought films especially to West Germany. It has to be somehow captured; it has to be collected so that all can know it,” the director says of her motivation in making her epic documentary.
When Agneskirchner saw the Gregors at the 2020 Festival, she knew she had to seize the moment. By then, they were both already in their late 80s. If she didn’t start the film immediately, she might never again have the chance.
“I had to convince them a little bit that this has to be done,” Agneskirchner says of the initial slight resistance the Gregors felt towards her project. They’d say to her: “is this really necessary? We are two old people. What do you want to show?” However, they were soon won round. “I convinced them and Corona kind of helped.” The Gregors were tireless travellers who were still attending many, many festivals. However, the pandemic grounded them. That gave Agneskirchner and her crew the chance to shoot them. “We managed to get vaccinated very early, the Gregors got vaccinated very early and so we had time. Everything was closed but we could shoot.”
The director was able to draw not just on the Gregors’ memories of German and international film culture but on their extraordinary archive. They have kept and collected a huge amount of material from the films they have programmed over the years: books, magazines, film reels, posters.
Before shooting began, Agneskirchner asked Erika and Ulrich to draw up a list of their most important films. They had to do this separately and not show them to each other. They would then be asked on camera about the films they both had chosen.
This wasn’t an easy project to complete. It includes clips from more than 40 films, everything from People On Sunday to Shoah, and Agneskirchner had to clear rights for all the material. That meant venturing deep into “the real jungle” of rights owners. Some people were very helpful. For example, Finnish master Aki Kaurismaki owns the rights to his own films and gave them to Agneskirchner for free. Others wanted payment.
Many prominent filmmakers, among them Jim Jarmusch, Michael Verhoeven, Wim Wenders and Volker Schlöndorff, appear in the documentary. “They were very ‘…oh a film on the Gregors! Great that you do it. Of course, we are willing to be in it. Just come by.’ It was no problem at all.”
One strand of the film becomes deeply personal. For example, Erika talks about her family, in particular her father’s links with the National Socialists. (Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah, h
elped her to come to terms with this chapter in her past.)
“When you start talking with them, you see how much their lives are interwoven with films and filmmakers they got to know through showing their films or being at other festivals…it was clear that that would become the structure,” the director reflects.
Erika and Ulrich may have had doubts initially about participating but, once shooting began, they were very open. “When you are really interested in somebody…when you have a camera and a sound crew, people want to share their life, their story, usually. It’s not that they really want to hide it. It is in every person, it is in ourselves that we want to connect with others.”
The Gregors have been married for many decades. Agneskirchner notes how “symbiotic” their relationship has become. They appear to have near perfect rapport. They may have begun their relationship with a big row, over People On Sundaywhich Ulrich liked but Erika found misogynistic, but they tend to agree about most things today. They are also pragmatic when it comes to business, making sure that they have been able to keep their own German subtitled prints of the films that they showed.
Now, the Gregors have given the documentary a very big thumbs up. When they were shown an early cut, which runs at over at two and a half hours, they watched with rapt attention. At the end, Gregor’s first comment was: “I could go on watching some more.” Erika, meanwhile, declared: “It’s a good film but I don’t know about myself.”
Cologne-based Real Fiction will be releasing Come With Me To The Cinema theatrically later in the summer. It will also be broadcast later on TV. Some further festival play is also expected.
