An older man, grey, chin-length hair, blue pants, striped shirt, is walking along the banks of the Isar. He pulls a noticeably heavy trolley behind him and carries a large bag on his shoulder. It is hot. Around him: people enjoying the sun or cooling off in the water. Again and again he reaches down to collect carelessly discarded bottles.
For the people of Munich around him they are rubbish, for the collector a “treasure”. Something that will help him make ends meet in this expensive city. The man is Gerd, the protagonist in Bernhard Wohlfahrter’s film “Glückstag”, whom the audience follows through Munich. Filmmaker Wohlfahrter was there as Gerd made his way through the streets and Isar paths.
The central character in the film “Glückstag” by Bernhard Wohlfahrter is bottle collector Gerd, 65, who is played by Claus-Peter Seifert.
(Photo: Samuel Zerbato and Lea Dähne)
Homelessness, poverty in old age, living at subsistence level. That, too, is Munich, the city of the rich and famous. Pointing this out is one of the concerns of director and student Bernhard Wohlfahrter. The 25-year-old is studying at the University of Television and Film in Munich. His feature film “Glückstag” tells the story of 65-year-old Gerd, who is forced to collect bottles because of his small pension. A man bending down in the heat for an eight cent returnable glass bottle. And from a city that has forgotten how privileged it is. Why is this topic important to the director?
When Bernhard, or Berni, as his friends call him, talks about his film, you hardly see his face, he gesticulates so much. The voice, reminiscent of Ben Becker, rattles through his entire apartment in Schwabing on this sunny August day. The blond hair is parted on the side, but there are still strands everywhere. He sits there in a glamorous manner. Cross your legs, one arm resting on the other.
You only notice that the filmmaker is only 25 years old when, during the conversation, he suddenly runs to his desk to get a piece of paper on which he has prepared his answers. “I’m excited,” he says. It is important to him to get the message of his “heart project” across correctly.
“I’m very aware of how privileged I am.”
The filmmaker from the Styrian Ennstal already knew as a child that he would one day become a director. His mother often filmed him and his siblings on family outings. “It always struck me that it could be done even better. Just like I knew it from television or the cinema,” he says and laughs. When playing with his brother, both of them always had to sing a song to introduce the beginning and end. “For me, everything had to be brought into dramaturgical forms,” he says.
After graduating from high school, he applied to numerous film schools. “I thought all doors were open to me, they were waiting for me,” he says. “But they didn’t do that, I was rejected immediately.” Before he applied again in 2019 and was accepted at the University of Television and Film in Munich, he gained practical experience. In addition to assisting directors in Tatort productions, he shot documentaries and was director of the Öblarner Festival in Austria in 2018. Today he is studying feature film directing in his fifth semester.
The reason for the film idea of ”Glückstag” was, among other things, a development of the 25-year-old in the past two years. He used to consume the news relatively ignorantly, but today that is no longer possible. He has changed, or the environment has changed him. “I’m very aware of how privileged I am. I’m sitting here in my beautiful apartment in Munich, complaining that it’s hot today or that the subway isn’t working, while a few hundred kilometers from me there’s war and endless suffering prevails,” says Bernhard seriously.
A film scene in which Gerd is walking on a sidewalk not far from the Isar.
(Photo: Samuel Zerbato and Lea Dähne)
The contrast between his everyday life and world events can no longer let him go. And especially in Munich, he often has the feeling that the beauty of the city and the prosperity that is supposed to exist everywhere can swing you into a “world-forgotten state of relaxation”.
“Poverty is excluded here, people look past it.”
Bernhard says his girlfriend came up with the idea of a bottle collector. “Munich and its wealth, its chic and its elegance. I was looking for a character who can guide us through this world and make that clear,” says the 25-year-old. People like Gerd are part of the city, but don’t fit into the cliché.
“Poverty is excluded here, people look past it,” says Bernhard. In the film it was therefore also important to him to destigmatize collecting bottles and to give the character dignity. “Gerd is not lazy and therefore in his situation. The external circumstances forced him to do it. I wanted to break with this cliché,” he says.
The short film was shot over four days in July. Bernhard “picked together” the 27 actors involved from amateurs, theater and film actors. This includes Claus-Peter Seifert, who plays the leading role. “I had seen him in another short film at the ‘Flimmern&Rauschen’ festival and thought it might be a good fit,” says the director. He wrote him an e-mail shortly afterwards, which led to a meeting. “We immediately had a common language. And I also had the feeling that he quickly understood who this character was and what this film was about for me,” he says.
The film crew accompanies the protagonist to a deposit machine, a kiosk and the Isar for a day. Again and again Gerd overhears the conversations of people who are complaining. Munich residents who are annoyed that they were served oat milk instead of almond milk somewhere. “It is precisely these encounters that point to the overprivileged life of the people,” says Bernhard. “Gerd is therefore also a character who offers the audience the chance to reflect on their own behavior.”
However, it was just as important to the filmmaker to show situations of solidarity. “He also learns a lot of positive things. For example, that humanity can exist regardless of origin or background,” says the 25-year-old.
Bernhard Wohlfahrter is believed to reflect the fact that his work also reflects his own privileged life situation, that he wants to prove himself worthy of it. He has no answer to the question of what he can do about the suffering in the world. “But I want the film to make you ask yourself this question and maybe find an answer for yourself,” he says.
In the conversation, he repeatedly refers to the poem “The Later Born” by Bertolt Brecht. It was a source of inspiration for the film. In order to remain true to his penchant for dramaturgical forms, he reaches for the poem at the end and reads it out loud: “What kind of times are these when / Talking about trees is almost a crime / Because it includes silence about so many misdeeds!”