Film Archive
And Along Come Tourists (Am Ende kommen Touristen)
Auschwitz wasn't what Sven, a young German, had in mind when he signed up to do his civil service abroad. For him, Auschwitz is a small town in Poland, a strange language, a concentration camp, all the musty grayness of high-school German history classes. To make matters worse, he's got to care for an unpleasant old man, Stanisław Krzemiński, a former inmate who never left the camp and now spends his time either giving contemporary-witness lectures or repairing suitcases. Krzemiński's world revolves around the suitcases taken from the Jews as they arrived at the concentration camp from all over Europe. Besides having to endure Krzemiński's haughty, gruff manner, Sven also has to put up with the barely concealed contempt of various locals. Luckily, there's Ania, a young guide who lets Sven stay at her place... As the weeks go by, Sven begins to discover both Auschwitz and Oświęcim, the place of horror and the Polish town, the memorial to inhumanity and the tourist industry that has sprung up around it. Yet within this push and pull of conflicting sensations grow love for Ania, compassion for Krzemiński, and the troubling, challenging realization about his own role in preserving the memory of this place...
Robert Thalheim was born in Berlin in 1974. After his schooling in the USA and Germany, he worked as an assistant director for the Berlin Ensemble theater and studied at the Free University Berlin and the "Konrad Wolf" Academy of Film & Television. He is the publisher of the cultural periodical Plotzki and has written a book about Andrzej Wajda. Also a theater writer and director, his films include: Um vier Uhr ploetzlich ging die Welt unter (documentary, 1996), Zeit ist Leben (short, 2000), Granica (short, 2002), Three Percent (short, 2002), Ich (short, 2003), Netto (2004), and And Along Come Tourists (Am Ende kommen Touristen, 2007).Category Feature Film Cinema
Year of Production 2007
Director Robert Thalheim
Screenplay Robert Thalheim
Director of Photography Yoliswa Gaertig
Editor Stefan Kobe
Music by Anton Feist, Uwe Bossenz
Production Design Michal Galinski, Rita-Maria Hallekamp
Producers Britta Knoeller, Hans-Christian Schmid
Commissioning Editor Christian Cloos
Production Company 23/5 Filmproduktion/Berlin, in co-production with ZDF Das kleine Fernsehspiel/Mainz, in cooperation with Pictorion Pictures/Huerth
Principal Cast Alexander Fehling, Ryszard Ronczewski, Barbara Wysocka, Piotr Rogucki, Rainer Sellien, Lena Stolze, Lutz Blochberger, Adam Nawojczyk, Roman Gancarczyk, Willy Rachow, Halina Kwiatkowska, Joachim Laetsch
Casting Simone Bär, Magda Szwarcbart
Length 85 min, 2,400 m
Format 35 mm, color, 1:1.85
Original Version German/Polish/English
Subtitled Versions English, French
Sound Technology Dolby Digital
Festival Screenings Cannes 2007 (Un Certain Regard), Karlovy Vary 2007, Toronto 2007, Warsaw 2007 (In Competition), Sevilla 2007, Thessaloniki 2007, Berlin & Beyond San Francisco 2007, Palm Springs 2008, Berlin 2008 (German Cinema), Miami 2008, Shanghai 2008, Havana 2008
Awards VGF Producers' Award 2007
With backing from German Federal Film Board (FFA), BKM, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
German Distributor X Verleih/Berlin
World Sales
Bavaria Film International / Dept. of Bavaria Media GmbH
Thorsten Ritter
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82031 Geiselgasteig/Germany
phone +49-89-64 99 26 86
fax +49-89-64 99 37 20
email: international@bavaria-film.de
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