178 ROME / CONGRESS CENTER - INDOOR / DAY
Merkel, Macron, Draghi and Biden are sitting around a round table. Behind the Chancellor, Olaf Scholz sits at the cat table. Merkel turns briefly to Scholz and then leans conspiratorially to her colleagues.
MERKEL: Do you already know this one?
Dissolve in:
179 GOVERNMENT JET “KONRAD ADENAUER” - INSIDE / DAY
Merkel, Scholz and Greta Thunberg are sitting in the government jet. Greta clings anxiously to her sleeping bag. - Merkel gets up and gently pulls the sleeping bag out of her arms.
MERKEL
(maternal)
: You can be completely relaxed, Greta.
She stuffs the sleeping bag in the overhead bins above them.
SCHOLZ
(fatherly)
: How else could you have got from Rome to Glasgow so quickly?
And anyway: We fly with synthetic kerosene.
At that moment the pilot rushes into the cabin.
PILOT: The engines have failed.
- We fall off.
He opens the overhead locker, pulls out a parachute, opens the cabin door and jumps off. - The Chancellor stands up and looks into the overhead lockers.
MERKEL
(objective)
: We only have two parachutes left.
Scholz jumps up, pulls out one of the parachutes, runs to the open cabin door.
SCHOLZ
(calling)
: I am the Chancellor elected!
I have to save the world!
He jumps off the plane.
MERKEL
(gently to Greta)
: You take the other.
You have to help Olaf.
He can't do it alone.
GRETA: We can both take one.
- He jumped off with my sleeping bag.
Cut to:
180 ROME / CONGRESS CENTER - INDOOR / DAY (LIKE 178)
The statesmen look confused.
BIDEN
(to Merkel)
: Do you think he can't rule your country without Greta's support?
- Wasn't there this green lady?
What's her name?
DRAGHI
(smiling and closing his eyes and breathing audibly through his nose)
: Anna-Lena!
SCHOLZ
(
answering
from the cat table)
: That was a joke, Joe!
BIDEN
(
ignores
him)
: And that unshaven Assange-looking guy even younger ...?
MACRON: Christián!
SCHOLZ
(loud and annoyed)
: It was a joke!
Biden turns briefly to Scholz at the cat table.
BIDEN
(to Merkel)
: Only a joke?
The Chancellor
smiles at him and
nods firmly.
MERKEL: One of my favorites!
Niki Stein
is a director and screenwriter.
He is currently working on a six-part series on the cum-ex scandal.