Premiere in Munich
Verhoeven: Milli Vanilli story fits well into today
Simon Verhoeven (l) and Fabrice Morvan at the premiere of “Girl You Know It’s True” in Munich. photo
© Sven Hoppe/dpa
Milli Vanilli’s career began 35 years ago in Munich – a few years later it ended with what was probably the biggest cheating scandal in music history.
According to director Simon Verhoeven, his film about the 1980s successful band Milli Vanilli fits well into today’s times. “This topic of becoming famous at any cost is a current topic,” said the 51-year-old on Monday at the world premiere of his film “Girl You Know It’s True”. Munich. “The film asks a lot of interesting questions about our time,” he said, also with regard to the influencer phenomenon.
Verhoeven’s film tells of the former successful duo Milli Vanilli – and probably the biggest cheating scandal in music history. When it became known in the early 1990s that Robert “Rob” Pilatus and Fabrice “Fab” Morvan had never sung their hits like “I’m Gonna Miss You” themselves, but had only moved their lips to the voices of others, there was an outcry Music world.
Exhilarating rise, merciless fall
In his film, Verhoeven tells of the beginnings of the two friends “Rob” and “Fab” as dancers in Munich clubs, of their meteoric rise, the exhilarating success and hard collision with the facts. It was a roller coaster ride, he said.
“Fab”, who came to the world premiere in Munich as a guest, now works in real life as a singer and songwriter and has four children, is played in the film by Elan Ben Ali; his friend “Rob”, who died in 1998 and was buried in Munich, by Tijan Njie. Matthias Schweighöfer plays Frank Farian. The film is scheduled to hit theaters on December 21st.
Verhoeven, who says he saw “Rob” and “Fab” dancing as teenagers in Munich’s P1 before they became superstars, also used his big film as an opportunity to pay homage to his famous mother Senta Berger.
Trailer In a scene in which the Milli Vanilli stars are sitting in a bar, paying homage to the numerous Hollywood stars with pictures on the wall, the young actress Berger can also be seen. “It should be a tribute,” said Verhoeven. “Because she was once in Hollywood.”