[press conference for
Acht Berge (2022) at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival] What I particularly liked was that it's a very tender friendship. The whole film has a fragility to it - it's an ode to life in all its strength and its fragility. For me, it didn't matter if they were men or women - I could really relate to them - and they have such a mutual respect for one another. They don't always find the words to talk to each other but they have great understanding for each other, and there's no competition. Both Felix [
Felix van Groeningen] and I both loved these very pure, honest people trying to find their way in life. We meet them when they're eleven, we follow them through adolescence, they lose track of each other, they find each other again, until they're in their forties. So it's really an epic story which touches upon all the most essential themes of life through this friendship: love, friendship, family, parents, ancestry, destiny. Can you change your destiny? How to find your way in life and accepting life and death. For us it was really an existential journey together with Pietro and Bruno.
