Director Jonas Ulrich formed a real black metal band for his debut function ”Wolves. ”
WLVS – led by the actor Bartosz BleachKnown for the Oscar-nominated “Corpus Christi”-ended touring and performing in real clubs. As well as their own world premiere on Zurich Film Festival.
“To take it seriously, we shot real concerts. We wrote a complete album and built a stage show. I wanted musicians to look at it and say:” I know exactly how it feels, “says Ulrich, explaining that the entire photography was built around the gigs they managed to book.
“I like music movies when the human drama is also on my own – when you could remove the music and the story still works.” Control “and” Sound of Metal “are good examples of that. We also wanted to push against the formula. In the end, the film is not really about the band.”
“I just used to listen to Iron Maiden and Tool, but since we made the movie, this music stopped with me,” Bielenia adds.
“I’ve always wanted to start a metal band, but I had no strength – or the skills. It was a great adventure to play these concerts and convince people with our performance. People who didn’t even know they were participating in a movie.”
In “Wolves” Luana (Selma Kopp) decides to join her cousin’s black metal band on tour. She falls for her singer, Wiktor (Bartosz Bielenia), but his views can be more radical than she thinks.
“I am a metalhead. I used to make booking, marketing and concert photography for underground bands. I wanted a movie that deals with this world seriously, not some cliché about the 1980s rock stars or satanic rituals,” says Ulrich.
Cup had no previous connection to black metal.
“That was exactly what fascinated me, because I love to discover new worlds and life reality through spectacle. It was an exciting challenge to immerse myself in such a different environment and grow from it,” she notes.
“Music is always central to my preparation process. For every role I create playlists to capture the character’s feelings. With Luana, this worked perfectly, because I already knew what kind of music she is listening to. It helped me get in touch with her world on a deeper level.”
Sold by Yellow Affair and produced by Dynamic Frame GmbH, “Wolves” – which debuted its trailer with Amount Last week – looking at a female perspective “within a largely male scene.”
“Especially in black metal. I wanted to show how they are perceived and how relationships are complicated. From the beginning we aimed to show both the good and the bad,” says Zurich-born Ulrich.
Forms of “people who are not what they seem to be”, he began to look for the right actor “long before” the script even was clear.
“We mixed professional actors with real musicians to get the world right, who created a rough, live chemistry on the screen.”
Bielenia, soon to be seen in “The time that never came,” Is also an experienced stage actor. Kopp debuts his actor.
“Luana makes some difficult and even the wrong decision during the movie. To make her authentic, I had to find a way to her motives and emotions, which was not always easy. But I understood her, and I think the audience can,” she says.
Calls Wiktor Whitening and “Very Dark Person.”
“In my mind comes a lot of his problems and his darkness, from his overwhelming loneliness. He is in a strange place, among strangers. He has no connection to his home or family,” explains Bielenia.
Wiktor “sticks to relationships as some kind of confirmation of his value” and uses other people. But there are loving moments.
“Maybe there is some hope for him? I always try to understand my character. We had added a story about Wiktor’s orphans and loneliness. He is an extinct tree. He just has himself.”
Bielenia notes: “In a climate with growing anxiety and fascist movements, when even the CEO of large companies sometimes gives the Nazi greeting, such gestures were difficult for us and only used as a last resort. But I think it is worth showing how easy it is to fall into the trap of extreme ideology.”
“Wolves”
With the state of the Zurich Film Festival
