Director
Schlöndorff presents his film himself in 44 cinemas
Director Volker Schlöndorff marketed his documentary “Der Waldmacher” himself. Photo: Gerald Matzka/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Who else wants to see a documentary in the cinema? Volker Schlöndorff shot “Der Waldmacher” and takes care of the marketing.
Director Volker Schlöndorff (83) wanted to present it himself in 44 cinemas in Germany so that his current documentary film would be successful despite the bad forecasts from his distributor.
In “Der Waldmacher”, the Oscar winner tells of the agronomist Tony Rinaudo, who developed a reforestation technique to green parts of the Sahel zone. “”The forest maker” is close to my heart, I want him to be seen,” said Schlöndorff of the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “But my distributor and other experts said you don’t even need to bring the film to the cinema, nobody goes to a program cinema anymore anyway. A documentary? Very bad! And so forth…”.
That’s why he decided to go on tour with the film. “Instead of sitting at home and watching the news, I’d rather do something active,” said Schlöndorff. «Wherever I’ve been on my tour so far, the cinemas have been sold out everywhere. And the cinema operators see that people are coming back to the cinema, they were happy to finally see a sold-out house again. Because half of the cinema operators that I’ve been to are worn down and ready to throw in the towel.” On Wednesday (May 11) is the last stop of the tour in Berlin.