Feelings of powerlessness must have afflicted everyone who has seriously considered the question of how to change “the structures”. Power is being misused somewhere, the power abusers in turn have other powerful people in the background who let them do as they please – and then these powerful people meet in a room, say nice things, seem genuinely concerned and make brooding faces. For example on Friday afternoon at the Munich Film Festival.
An actor is said to have masturbated while being made up
There, the leaders of the German film industry discussed the, well, the structures. It was rather ugly what you were last allowed to read about an apparently addicted star director who was allowed to rule over film sets undisturbed as the “Emperor” – especially scary that you heard from the industry that everything was already known, just another dark level within a wide gray area of things that happen on almost every film set. Business as usual, only worse.
Degeto, the film purchasing company of the ARD, through which around 400 million euros flow into the industry every year, had invited to the broadcasting center of the Bayerischer Rundfunk, its managing director Thomas Schreiber moderated the panel. So it’s a matter for the boss. Sitting across from him on the stage was Maria Furtwängler, actress and committed to more equality in the media with her Malisa Foundation.
In between other heavyweights: ARD program director Christine Strobl and Nico Hoffmann, CEO of the film group UFA. Sabine de Mardt was invited, a board member of the German Producers Alliance, the industry’s employers’ association – unfortunately she didn’t come because her plane couldn’t land because of the thunderstorm. It’s a pity, actually: Your colleague on the board in the association is Constantin boss Martin Moszkowicz, who, as Til Schweiger’s client, claims to have known nothing – or almost nothing – about staggering Til Schweiger attacks.
A few days before the event, there was another flash out of the morass: the Association of Austrian Make-up Artists confirmed in a statement on Instagram that “such and similar situations” as Marie Kreutzer described at the Austrian Film Ball “actually occur”. Kreutzer had reported an actor who is said to have masturbated while he was being made up. “There are good reasons why most colleagues are silent about this and it is often necessary for self-protection,” wrote the association.
The SZ then spoke to a make-up artist who wanted to remain anonymous for the time being. It became a conversation in which, once again, no names were mentioned, instead a lot was about fear. And it was about an industry in which everything that promotes problematic behavior is concentrated: project work with people you might never see again afterwards. An enormous pressure to succeed with tightly calculated budgets. A cult of genius around superstars who, as draft horses, can do almost anything. And above all: Trades such as costumes and make-up, the “plucking and plucking trade”, as it is disparagingly called, in which women do a lot of invisible work, at the bottom of the steep hierarchy.
“It shouldn’t be a feel-good event,” said Thomas Schreiber at the beginning of the Pandel discussion. His Degeto recently sent a letter to its employees that they finally wanted to break “this vicious circle” of fear of speaking openly about grievances “together with you”. During the panel, he appealed several times to the industry representatives invited to report if any misconduct became known. But, of course, that’s difficult.
The only participant who has no power embodied the hopes for change
That’s why a woman in a pink jacket and glittering sneakers had a very special meaning: Brigitte Ehmann was Human Resources Manager at ProSieben/Sat1 for 18 years, and now she works as a “person of trust” on film sets. The production companies paid her, Ehmann explained, but she was independent and responsible for solving conflicts before the shooting schedule got messed up or someone was punched by the director.
When asked what was going on on the sets, she shared two stories. One scalding, only ten days old. An older actress asked what all this nonsense was all about, the talk about assaults had been touched on earlier in the GDR, that’s just the way it is. The other was about a lighting technician who had been told by a manager that he looked really cute, but he still got in the way. He didn’t dare to say anything, a very difficult situation, “a system that has been tolerated for decades and rewarded with success”.
The director Julia von Heinz had something to say about this, namely that she was surprised: Two stories in which women show problematic behavior? You experience it the other way around. “A lot of women on the set, is that the cure?” Maria Furtwangler asked.
At this point, as a listener, you asked yourself the next question, namely whether you can do something about the talk show presentation of all social pain points and whether you should perhaps rather let yourself be floated out to sea on an air mattress. Does everything have to be so artificially complicated, so pseudo-dialectical, when the solutions are sometimes obvious?
For example: yes, “lots of women on set” would be a great idea as long as they have something to say. Staggering, beating, raping women in leadership positions are rare. Even less frequently than women in managerial positions. Do you seriously want solutions? Voilà, here’s one!
ARD program director Strobl seemed genuinely contrite when she said she felt “highly sensitive” on the subject, but most of the conversations about such cases in her area of responsibility had led to her asking after all the facts had been looked at: “We can what to do with that?” Whereupon “one” said, no, that’s definitely not possible. These things happen in a “relatively personal area,” said Strobl, and then there are statements against statements.
Who should help, who goes between the fronts? Exactly: the person of trust. A mixture of mediator and one-woman-awareness-team, which gives the team on the set the ability to act and a climate of mindfulness at the same time. A business variant of the woke culture, so to speak. The woman with the glitter sneakers embodied the hopes for change – as the only one in the group who has no power.
She keeps hearing the question: “Can you guarantee that something will happen?”
There is a consensus that throwing people out who exhibit abusive behavior is complicated. Because it costs money when production stops – money that is always and forever missing. But there was also agreement on the importance of creating an atmosphere in which people are not afraid to report abuse.
Right from the start of shooting, it is important to make the rules of conduct very clear and thereby set a certain mood. No, better long before the start of shooting, a man from the audience reported that there were mandatory rules of conduct already in the contract negotiations with the creative people insist that it is also important to train the managers, “we all have to be confidants,” he said.
Another listener asked who he was. He works for Constantin, said the man who had just overtaken everyone else in terms of weekness on the left. The Til Schweiger company.
It’s safe to assume that all of the people on the panel really want to make a difference. And you don’t get the impression that nothing is happening. But it’s the same as always: the change costs something, and that’s why it’s better to talk first. Or you pay someone to talk. Someone to restore trust.
What would really help against the fear? The confidant Ehmann then said it surprisingly unequivocally: people should be thrown out sometimes. Names should be in newspapers. “On the phone I have people who call me with tear-choked voices who have gotten up to tell something” – and they wanted to know whether the person concerned would feel the consequences. “Can you guarantee me that something will happen?”
You can also save yourself a person you trust who cannot answer yes to that, that’s what it should mean.