Filmmaker Anna Thommen discusses the making of the film, Neuland.
Anna Thommen: My movie Neuland is about young foreigners. They come to Switzerland, to a country they don't know, they come from every part of the world, they're young, they are between 16 and 20 years old and when they come to Switzerland they have like nothing. There exists a school — it's called an integration school. So it's about this first two years in the new country with our teacher, Mr. Zingg.
I didn't look for the story. The story, I think the story found me. When I was in the film school I was working where young people come to this institution to learn more about media... And suddenly there came Mr. Zingg. He's very special. He's original and he's probably for me is probably the best teacher I've ever seen. He is very honest, he doesn't hide everything or he doesn't build their dreams and then they fall. He really tell them how is reality but at the same time he's able to motivate them.
I was just amazed about you know the teacher and the pupils, how they are together. The huge respect they have for each other. And so I was amazed and I was thinking about making a movie about that. And so I was asking at lunchtime I was asking Mr. Zingg if he would do that and he was very, very spontaneous and said yes, let's do that. And then I realized that he always thought like for ten years to make a movie about his pupils. The whole world, who is coming into one classroom and I saw this like a mirror of our society of what is going on in the world.
It was hard at the beginning to have the confidence of the kids .You know you can imagine, they came, they are new in the country, and they don't understand the language. They don't know what the teacher is talking about and everything, and then there is also a camera and they don't know... We couldn't tell them at the first day what we are doing, but I knew in the movie, I really, really have to film from the first day on.
What drew me to film was through theater. I was acting in theater, so I loved fiction and everything, I love to tell stories, but at the same time I also realized reality is so much more interesting than what I was thinking in my head. I remember when we were at a camp in the mountains with... Where we spend a whole week all together, day and night, and they talked a lot about their life story, about what they experienced during the trip to Switzerland and everything and in the night I couldn't sleep anymore. It's like you go to a second or third world country, and you come back to Switzerland to your rich country and to your protected life. And then everything makes no sense. You ask yourself, should I not help now? You know, it's always the difficulty when you make a documentary, but at this project it was very difficult to be observing, and to film, and not to help. And I had to tell me a lot of time you're here as a filmmaker and for luck, there was Mr. Zingg, because then you know I always knew Mr. Zingg will help.
The first time when I showed the movie to all the characters was at the premiere. Because it's very difficult to look at yourself, it's very difficult to hear yourself also. Also for me. But I think for young people it's much more difficult, and they have a lot of self-criticism and I wanted to avoid that. And then I thought it's also very important that they have an audience, who – I was hoping – is engaged with them, and has emotion and will applaud a lot. And so it was. And they came to the stage of the theatre. A lot of people came to them and said thank you for showing us your life, and it's very courageous, and everything, so it was very important to show them like that.
I had a lot of time the reactions of people who watched the movie, and then after, they decided to give chances to young foreigners, because they have every day, telephone calls from young kids who are not able to really speak proper German and the reaction is to yeah, we don't have something. And to hang up, and then after the movie, I heard a lot of time the reaction that they always think okay now I have to, I want to give chances and I think this is, yeah, it's a great reaction.
It's about foreigners coming to Switzerland, but you know the movie is more about human beings coming together. There are people, they know a lot of foreigners in the cities or they work with foreigners, they don't... Are not afraid because they realize okay we are the same, and we also need foreigners to develop ourselves and society and the economy and everything. And then there are other people who have no contact – real contact, human contact – to foreigners. And then fear gets huge… Big. I did not want to make a political movie. It's about characters. And you involve very fast with these characters. You get emotional with them. You are sad when they are sad, you really want them to find a solution and this was really important for me. To be emotional, not to be intellectual, political, to be emotional.