When a successful director films a bestselling novel, one can be particularly excited about the result. As recently became known, Marcus H. Rosenmüller (“Who dies earlier, is dead longer”) brings the popular coming-of-age story “The Great Summer” by Ewald Arenz to the big screen. The Film-Fernseh-Fonds Bayern (FFF) supports the production of the cinema film with 700,000 euros.
Arenz is a teacher and writer from Franconia and is currently one of the most widely read authors in Germany. With the tragic comedy “Love on bad days” he landed another hit in early 2023. In “The Big Summer” (2021), the 57-year-old tells of a youth in the eighties. At the center of the light-footed yet profound story about friendship and family, love and death is the teenager Frieder, who spends the holidays with his unapproachable grandfather to study for the exams. However, there are much more important things that he learns there.
The production has a Bavarian touch through and through. In addition to Rosenmüller, 49, who recently ventured into “New Stories from Pumuckl” (premier at the Children’s Film Festival 2023), the Munich production company Windlight Pictures is involved. HFF graduate Ariane Schröder (“There and Away”, “So Close to the Horizon”) is responsible for the screenplay.