Film Archive
No Mercy (Ohne Gnade)
Production Report featured in
German Films Quarterly 02/2004
If a filmmaker performs two functions, such as writing and directing, he or she is called, obviously, the writer-director. In Hollywood slang, they are known as a “hyphenate.”
In taking such an active hand in Ohne Gnade, it’s not Birgit Stein’s ego-run-amok (although there’s plenty of that in this business) but rather a determined filmmaker who also had the good fortune to team up with two like-minded colleagues, Jutta Rabe and Kaj Holmberg.
“It’s been unbelievably difficult,” says Birgit Stein of her women-strike-back comedy. “I’ve been working on it for ten years and so often it looked like it was going to get greenlit and then it would fall apart at the last second.”
“Ten years ago, when I started this project, I wanted to write and act,” she says, “not produce and direct. But in the intervening time I became a producer and director as well, so that’s why I’m doing all four. I’m especially happy to be working with Jutta and Kaj because we all share the same vision.”
“I like films like The Full Monty that are funny but also have something serious to say. My film deals with three women, Biene, her mother and younger sister, who want to turn the tables on men. But only those representatives of the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am faction! Biene understands it lies in women’s hands as to how men treat them. There’s no reason to be so frustrated. At the end of the film the women realize they’re no better than the worst of the men. She cast herself as Biene, “because I wrote the part for me! I love to act!”
“But don’t worry,” Stein reassures, “I want to entertain, not be some kind of man-hating feminist. I’m going to make people laugh!”
As for recruiting the rest of the cast, star names such as Til Schweiger and Juergen Prochnow for example (as well as some surprise stars), she says, “I opened my address book, called my fellow lunatics and here we are!”
Although this is her first feature, Stein’s comedic credentials include writing sketches for German TV while her two times award nominated comedy short, Don’t Get Stuck, aired on WDR. She also developed the sitcom Rich and Famous Overnight, which was optioned for the US and Canada.
Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2004
Director Birgit Stein
Screenplay Birgit Stein
Director of Photography Wedigo von Schultzendorff
Editor Fritz Busse
Music by Soren Hylgaard
Producers Birgit Stein, Jutta Rabe, Kaj Holmberg, Terence S. Potter, Timo T. Lahtinen
Production Companies Top Story Filmproduction/Potsdam, SteinZeit Entertainment/Cologne, in co-production with Dragon Motion Pictures/Cardiff, Smile Entertainment/Copenhagen
Principal Cast Birgit Stein, Barbara Schoene, Til Schweiger, Bruno Eyron, Sven Martinek, Juergen Prochnow, Dieter Laser, Tom Gerhardt
Length 100 min
Shooting Language German
Shooting in Berlin, Bremen, Cologne, June - August 2004
With backing from Filmstiftung NRW
Contact
Top Story Filmproduction GmbH
Jutta Rabe, Kaj Holmberg
Medienhaus Studio Babelsberg
August-Bebel-Strasse 26-53
14482 Potsdam/Germany
phone +49-3 31-74 0 49 40
fax +49-3 31-7 40 49 41