On May 25, 2023, the fantasy series “Der Greif”, based on the novel of the same name by Wolfgang and Heike Hohlbein, started on the streaming provider Amazon Prime Video. FILMSTARTS editor Stefan Geisler met Sebastian Marka and Erol Yesilkaya, the showrunners of the series, via Zoom for an interview and spoke with them about the production of “Der Greif”, the difficulties of genre productions in Germany, the language of films and love spoke about the work of Wolfgang Hohlbein.
“The Griffin” is groundbreaking in the genre
Sebastian Marka: I read Der Greif as a child and it created images in me. And the message of Wolfgang’s novel was overwhelming: You can’t fight hate with hate. To us it was almost an anti-war fantasy. This is an epic fantasy story, great genre fare with a good message that we read as a kid and we fell in love with this world.
Erol Yesilkaya: Wolfgang Hohlbein is the most successful living German author ever. If there had been an opportunity in the German film industry to adapt a novel by Wolfgang Hohlbein, it would certainly have happened – and there were also attempts: I myself was involved in the adaptation of his novel “Mörderhotel”. But nothing came of that, there was a lack of budget and faith in the success of the fantasy genre. Even a film adaptation like “Krabat” was successful, but not a big hit either – that scares people off. With the arrival of streamers, there are now completely different possibilities.
Sebastian Marka: We actually wanted to make “Der Greif” a movie in America, and we had conversations about it, but Wolfgang Hohlbein is largely unknown there. At that time, apart from “Fairy Tale Moon”, no Wolfgang Hohlbein novels had yet appeared in America. And that is of course a problem – if you are not popular in America as a German author, you will not get the big budgets. And in Germany everyone wanted to do it, but the necessary budget wasn’t there because we didn’t have the relevant industry at the time.
In Germany, the desire for cinematic playfulness or the acceptance of new, daring material has not been learned by the public. There is e-literature and U-literature [Anm.: Ernsthafte Literatur und Unterhaltungsliteratur]. The genre market needs to evolve. For example, years ago it was said “Germans can’t write thrillers” and then Sebastian Fitzek and many of his colleagues came along and now it’s completely normal for thrilling thrillers to come out of Germany.
The same with “Der Greif”: we are doing pioneering work here. “Der Greif” is the first attempt to produce a German fantasy book from Germany, with German resources – and also a German budget, which is very high, but still not comparable to serial productions like “Lord of the Rings” or “The Witcher “. ” – and, of course, we hope that the viewers will be open to it. And all I can say is this: there are currently a lot of fantasy projects that just watch “Der Greif” and see if the series is well received.
Genre reproductions from Germany
Erol Yesilkaya: On the one hand, as I said, it is due to the lack of budgets and on the other hand, due to the lack of understanding of the language of the genre. Film is language – when I studied Hong Kong film, “Tiger & Dragon” was released in cinemas. For me, things like Wire-Fu were normal. It was not uncommon for people to fly through the air on wires and fight with swords. But the audience laughed out loud in the cinema. It’s a totally different movie language that wasn’t accepted at all at the time because people just didn’t know it. The same goes for fantasy too: it’s rarely done here, so audience acceptance doesn’t exist.
Sebastian Marka: We are also very inspired by America when it comes to films and series, and Germany has had a lot to do with its own history in recent decades – you can of course also see that in the film landscape. Few genre films have been produced here, but rather dramas dealing with serious matters. And in Germany we don’t have a real film industry like in America, which makes many billions of dollars in profits every year.
Instead, for years we worked with film funding or public service programs, which placed great value on socially relevant material. Many genre productions also have a relevant message, but it sometimes comes across as more commercial. Genre material such as horror films is therefore often neglected – if a public broadcaster interferes with a film, it also wants to present it to a wide audience at 8:15 p.m. and must therefore receive approval from 12:00 p.m. But horror, for example, does not work from 12 now.
These are all system-immanent reasons and that’s why we haven’t seen many of these productions from Germany. Maybe that’s why it always seems a bit odd and strange to us when we see such productions from Germany – but it will, because the streamers have suddenly created an industry that is also interested in genre productions. The public broadcasters are now also more open to the genre. It just takes time to accept this film language and say “It’s okay if horror is set in Berlin or fantasy is set in Krefeld”.
Erol Yesilkaya: This applies not only to the audience, but also to us filmmakers. It’s not like waking up one morning and suddenly being the master of a genre. If you love something, you should be allowed to do it and fail. When you learn to walk, you fall on your face before you can really walk properly. In Germany you don’t really get a chance to make a genre, to fail, to learn and to develop. Sebastian and I tried to develop our horror and thriller aspects mainly from the crime scene. We brought in spiritual elements and tried to learn our language.
Sebastian Marka: We have not taken over the whole book, but only the first subchapter – ie the deliverance of Thomas.
Erol Yesilkaya: At the end of the day, you just look at the starting point that can be told as succinctly as possible, that best captures the essence of the novel. With “The Griffin” it was very clear, since the novel is divided into separate books. So almost like individual seasons. In addition, you want to somehow convey the essence of what you felt when you read the novel in the series. Accordingly, we have also made Mark older than in the novel. Although the novel has a young protagonist, it felt rather dark and gritty. A little harder than you’re used to. And we wanted to capture that feeling.
In addition, Wolfgang’s style is often very intuitive. Phrases like “And Mark just knew he had to go there” are challenging for a screenwriter. We had to concretize that, find images, include visual ideas that concretize the whole thing. In general, there is always saving on storytelling. You always have to cut back, always.
Fantasy is archaic storytelling
Erol Yesilkaya: It’s also a generational thing, especially from the creators of the series, I’d say. The Duffer Brothers [Anm. d. Red.: Schöpfer von „Stranger Things“] one hundred percent grew up with Steven Spielberg. We grew up with Steven Spielberg and Wolfgang Hohlbein – that’s how our mix was born. Often, certain people in a generation just have an idea and say, “Hey, that’s the idea! We’re going to make a movie out of that.” And then three weeks later exactly this kind of movie comes out and then another one like this one and another…
Sebastian Marka: I think there are many ways that a filmmaker gets into film, maybe because you’ve experienced something traumatic or special and you think film is the best way to express that. Or because you were in the cinema as a young person and constantly want to evoke that special feeling you had as a child, for example when you saw “Jurassic Park” for the first time.
You then become a filmmaker and you have to realize that there is a difference between making films and watching films, and yet you find the feeling again. It is probably found in the fantastic fabrics, in those original archaic stories. Then, as a filmmaker, you try to recreate that childhood experience in the cinema. The Duffer brothers do the same as we do. There is nothing more beautiful than sitting in the cinema at the premiere and seeing this feeling in others…
Erol Yesilkaya: I would still like to adapt “Mörderhotel” and I would have liked to implement “Hagen von Tronje” – but the straw has been sucked now… And “Daughters of the Dragon” would still be a favorite of mine.
Sebastian Marka: “Fairytale Moon”, “Midgard” and of course “The Druid’s Gate”.