Life often writes the best punchlines itself. When Johanna Huber, who had a different last name at the time, saw the comedy “Summer in Orange” by director Marcus H. Rosenmüller with a friend in the cinema in 2011, the filming location gave rise to discussions afterwards. The story takes place in the early 1980s on a farm in Talbichl, “in such a small cow village” in Bavaria – film quote – where a Berlin sannyasin community wants to set up a Bhagwan therapy center. At the time, Johanna Huber wondered where one would find such a “pig sty” in the Munich area: In the film, the courtyard was simply a dump, surrounded by waist-high meadows, weeds and nettles. Johanna Huber was sure that the herb had been planted specially, because where else can you find something like that.
There’s something like that in Oberbiberg, in the district of Munich, she found out a few years later. That’s where she met Johannes Huber. He was the owner of this “pig sty” and she found out: The nettles weren’t specially planted. The two became a couple. “I married into a mess,” she says with a laugh today – it’s her whole personal punch line. One thing has to be said in defense of Johannes Huber: When the listed courtyard from 1883 became the location for the Rosenmüller film, the house had been empty for 50 years. Huber inherited it from a distant relative in 2009 when he was 19 and initially offered it as a film set. Today the farm is no longer a pigsty, but a lovingly restored farm where the Hubers live with their three children.
The hayloft hasn’t changed much since filming in 2010.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
The fact that Oberbiberg, a district of Oberhaching in the district of Munich with its 384 inhabitants, became Talbichl, an Upper Bavarian sannyasin oasis, is due to a newspaper advertisement. A farm was being sought for a Rosenmüller film, as it was called there. “That would be something,” thought Johannes Huber. The Oberbibergers have experience with film shoots, it is not for nothing that the “Kuhdorf” is also called Filmdorf by its residents. A number of scenes for movies and TV series have already been filmed here: “Meister Eder and his Pumuckl” and “Forsthaus Falkenau” are among them, but above all Marcus H. Rosenmüller’s successful comedy “Who dies earlier is longer dead” from 2006, for the central scenes were filmed in the Kandler tavern right across from the Huber-Hof. Johannes Huber himself had already rented out his newly inherited farm as a set for the TV comedy “Adel dich”, for “Summer in Orange” Rosenmüller then returned to Oberbiberg from May to July 2010, with interruptions.
Johannes Huber in front of his farm.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
The courtyard turned out to be an ingenious film location. The many large rooms, especially the kitchen, which in the film invites the Sannyasin community to discuss free love with the large dining table, were able to convey credibly that many people lived here, and it was also easy to move around with the camera, as employees of the film production company Roxy Film in Munich remember. The ramshackle image was “worsened” by the film crew, says Huber. Today the kitchen is still the size of a ballroom, but it is no longer a dump. Instead of the dining table, a modern cooking island with an integrated wood-burning stove now forms the center. Other scenes in the courtyard have changed less: the attic, where the two film children Lili and Fabian have set up their empire, and the courtyard entrance, where the orange-clad Bhagwan disciples nail together their therapy center, are still in their raw state. The film people erected a monument to the owners: the film mentions the “Huber-Hof”.
Idyll in Orange: A photo from the culture clash comedy on the lawn in front of the yard.
(Photo: Roxy Film GmbH)
Back then, Johannes Huber was impressed by the small film town that grew up around his house: the number of vehicles, the caravans for the make-up, the generators and the in-house catering. Many Oberbiberger and walkers would have used the shooting in the summer of 2010 to take a closer look at the house, he remembers. The courtyard stood empty for decades, the doors were firmly closed. Now was the time to let my curiosity run wild. In the hustle and bustle, it was not noticed that many people on the film set had nothing to do with the shooting.
The Hubers now live with their three children on the restored farm in Oberbiberg. They don’t shoot there anymore, at least not inside anymore.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
The Oberbibergers are actually not that enthusiastic about living in a film village, says Sonja Heigl, who is the Hubers’ neighbor. For years “Forsthaus Falkenau” was filmed in the village, you always had to be quiet, the road was often closed when you had to hurry the children to the S-Bahn. “It all got on my nerves.” But then “der Rosi”, director Rosenmüller, came to her door with a number of the film crew and asked if they wanted to be part of “Summer in Orange” as film neighbors. She resolutely said yes, but only “because Rosi was so likeable”.
“We were part of the film crew,” says the neighbor
A little later, two 40-ton trucks drove up, cleared out the entire living room, also took over the kitchen and dining room and designed a stuffy eighties home: the film home of the mayor’s family, where little Lili from the Bhagwan -Commune seeks refuge in a regular household with sausages and potato salad for dinner. To this day, the film people have a “giant place” in Sonja Heigl’s heart: “We were part of the film crew.” Back then, the children were allowed to play in the Bhagwan commune as birthday guests, and the entire exit to the basement is still full of photographs from that shoot. When the film people were done, including the Kama Sutra scene of the mayor’s couple on the living room carpet, everything was dismantled. “I was allowed to choose the color for the living room walls,” Heigl recalls.
Director Marcus H. Rosenmüller (centre) with Petra Schmidt-Schaller (left) and Bela Baumann during filming in 2010.
(Photo: Angelika Bardehle)
The Hubers have often rented out their farm for film shoots, “Sophie kocht” with Annette Frier was also filmed here and the Munich crime scene “Freies Land” from 2017. Since the family has lived in the farm itself, since 2018, they have not wanted any film people have more in the house. But outside shoots are possible, says Johanna Huber. Most recently, scenes for the crime scene 2020 were created here. There are still a few blood spatters on the wall next to the front door. But they don’t irritate anyone in the film village. They’re not real.