Frankfurt is not Hollywood, the Hauptwache is not the Croisette in Cannes, and the large hall of the Frankfurt cinema called "Lumière" is not the film palace of the Berlinale.
But the main actor Jürgen Prochnow, who can confidently be called a world star, takes care of the glamor.
Someone who has celebrated success since his role as commander on the bridge of Wolfgang Petersen's "Das Boot" 40 years ago, since David Lynch's "Desert Planet" or, alongside Eddy Murphy, as Maxwell Dent in "Beverly Hills Cop II" Has.
Christoph Schütte
Freelance author in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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An artist without airs, of course, who, at the age of 80, can certainly afford to play in a first film like “A Handful of Water”.
And don't quarrel with the circumstances.
After all, said Prochnow in an interview with the FAZ, he knew what to expect.
“And that it is a low-budget production with just 25 days of shooting.
You have to make concessions. "
World star in low-budget production
Technically, in terms of the ambitious schedule, also in the rehearsal work with the wonderful twelve-year-old Milena Pribak, who was here for the first time in front of a camera.
And who, as a Yemeni refugee girl Thurba, brings the old, bitter, but above all rather lonely Konrad back to life, who Prochnow embodies.
So now a breath of the big wide cinema world was blowing through the foyer, a long queue actually formed at the entrance to the premiere of “A Handful of Water”, there were plenty of warm words of thanks, champagne and much more moving applause and smiling faces everywhere. Jakob Zapf's directorial debut has become a Frankfurt film through and through, with a strong cast right down to the supporting roles also with Frankfurters such as Anke Sevenich, Isabel Berghout and Rainer Ewerrien, directing and production, Zapfs and Tonio Kellner's Neopol, the Jip Verleih, based in Frankfurt, supported has the Hessen Film und Medien. In fact, at their home game premiere a week before the cinema release, the director and his team were noticeably relieved that the film was finally coming to theaters after numerous delays, not least due to the pandemic.Now, apart from the festivals, for example in Hof, at the Lichter Filmfest or in Florence, where Zapf won the director's award with “A Hand Full of Water”, it should inspire a large audience.
Prochnow "absolutely wanted to do that"
The story itself sounds a little sentimental.
And in fact one has not seen something like this for the first time: flight and displacement, a family threatened with deportation, the stubborn old man, gentle children's eyes, a crisis illustrated with strong, although occasionally even too close images such as birds flying up Cranes or the submarine bobbing around on the bottom of Konrad's aquarium - probably a homage to Prochnow's career.
But Prochnow, who is currently in Frankfurt more often anyway, because his wife Verena Wengler is currently playing in the Fritz Rémond Theater, Prochnow wanted “to do that.” Not only because he was attracted by the script by Zapf, Ashu BA and Marcus Seibert which, as he says, “as far as that was still possible”, in the end he still worked on it himself. Or because he avowedly tries to “get the best out of it” on every set anyway. But above all, the film is a matter close to Prochnow's heart. A topic, a current political dispute that preoccupies him very much. "If you bring that to the cinema," says Prochnow, "you might actually be able to reach some people."
He wants to raise awareness about what war, loss and misery, what flight, displacement and a spark of hope mean for the future of a homeless family.
“In addition, at the end of the war I was a refugee child myself,” Prochnow recalls.
“Getting away with your life was the greatest gift.” This empathy, this “immersion in a character who also has something to do with me”, as Prochnow says, can be felt in every shot of the film.
An event - whether in Hollywwood or at the main station.
“A handful of water” will hit the cinemas on November 11th.
Trailer https://www.jip-film.de/eine-handvoll-wasser