Animals are rarely allowed to go to the cinema, but they are always welcome in the cinema. So on the canvas, where pure animality is not enough. No, such a film animal has to be able to do more: sing, dance or laugh, for example, otherwise you can stay at home and stroke the cat.
On Sunday afternoon, a lot of animal lovers wait in front of the Arri cinema to see “The School of Magical Animals”: So the makers of this film based on the children’s book series of the same name have done a lot right. Their title characters are mercilessly humanized, they babble wildly, eat chocolate cookies and perform breakdance interludes. In addition, they hire themselves out as comforters and detectives, so the audience gets a lot on offer. Since magpie, fox or turtle are first of all magical and secondly, they were subsequently tinkered into the film by computer, they are left behind in the chaos of the premiere on the red carpet.
This is an animal-free zone, this is where the people are in charge. A master of ceremonies ensures that everyone is in the right place at the right time to look into cameras, step in front of microphones, or answer questions. The celebrity guests are the first to be photographed, although the celebrity thing is of course relative: If, as in the case of a young lady with a very short skirt, hardly any photographer takes the photo, a little more work has to be done on the level of awareness. Or maybe she just ended up at the wrong event, there are a lot more self-portraits and Adabeis in this city than magical animals.
Then come the children, more precisely the 18 young actors who go to school together in the film. The master of ceremonies repeatedly brings three of them in front of the photo wallpaper: Emilia Maier, Leonard Conrads and Loris Sichrovsky are the young protagonists; Sasha perform her mimic repertoire. They do it with such casualness as if they had never done anything else. But all three are debutants and were in front of the camera for the first time.
Marleen Lohse has more experience, the Berliner with the curly red mane plays a hair salon owner in this film. Before going to the cinema, she remembers her beginnings: “I started acting when I was twelve.” So about the age when the kids are in the film? “Yes, exactly. However, I wasn’t as professional as she was back then.” Lohse laughs and obeys one of the most important premiere laws: Always praise others more than yourself.
In this case, the children and magical animals are the focus anyway, so she can also take a step back. Her colleague Justus von Dohnányi sees it similarly, he plays the school principal and talks about his school days: “I was neither good nor happy there.” He laughs too, but when it comes to a good mood he can’t compete with the woman next to him: Margit Auer wrote the novel, and that afternoon in front of the Arri Kino she is beaming all over her face. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike the film people, she no longer has to vie for the favor of the audience.
The “School of Magical Animals” series is already a huge success on the book market, with seven million books and translations in 25 languages sold. Can this popularity be transferred to the cinema? That will be revealed from October 14th, when the film will open nationwide. The makers firmly believe in a success, the shooting of the second part has been completed, this should come out next year. That also makes Margit Auer smile, she doesn’t feel pressured at all, she says: “I have a lot more animals in my head.”