Cannes Film Festival – Writer-insighter

I’m appealing

Or Janni Schenck is, anyway.

In case you’ve missed the flurry of posts, after fifteen years when for most of them I didn’t think I could write it, after two years of buying every second-hand book I could find and being that sad bloke with the bookshelf full of broken-spined books with black hakencruzen on them (well, if you don’t know it won’t matter, will it?) and a good bout of pneumonia early last winter that I sat through in a daze, I finally wrote the story of a kid of fourteen who was beaten-up by his schoolteacher to save his life.

Why me? Because I won the BBC Writers Room screenplay competition in 2013. Because I heard this story first-hand from the man I always thought of as Janni Schenck.

There were lots of odd things about it. I don’t remember writing for more than twenty minutes, for a start. Pneumonia isn’t all bad, apart from the feeling that you actually really seriously genuinely might die of this. But I didn’t die and when I came out the other side of it 135 pages of properly-formatted feature film script was there in front of me. The day the first draft was done I went on Facebook and met Christa Muths, who had that day coincidentally finished her factual book about German anti-Nazi resistance. And yes, there was a lot of it. And a lot of it was covered-up, for all sorts of reasons.

There being no point in this screenplay sitting in my desk drawer it needs to be made into a film. Film Suffolk like it a lot. But they estimate it needs about £10 million to get it made, as tanks, airplanes and German villages don’t come cheap. So the best plan I have is to go to the Cannes Film Festival and buttonhole people there until I latch on to someone with the courage and the vision to make a film of the truth.

There’s a snag. I don’t have the kind of money or life that allows me to flit off to Cannes and hang out with film directors whenever I feel like it. I’ve sorted some cheap accommodation at sixty euros a night. But I still need money for fares, entry into the Festival, entry to the Marche du Film and living for ten days while the Festival goes on.

You can help in lots of ways. You could contribute directly, but even if you can’t do that you can also help by just sharing this appeal.

Getting what it takes

It had its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, back in 2007. In a familiar scenario, 856 other films were entered, as some 230-odd were at the bit of Cannes I entered this year. It was one of 16 winners, unlike the similar number at Cannes of which mine isn’t one. I think I can see where the differences are though.

It got screened at loads of regional festivals in the US and popped up as one of the top five American films presented at the Directors Fortnight bit at Cannes in 2007. It was based on a true story. Unlike Janni Schenck, Zoo was a film about a man who died after getting a horse to get down with him and shake what Barry White might have called it’s lurve thang. But presumably not with the intent of ramming it through his intestines, which anyone who’s actually seen a horse might think an entirely predictable outcome of what turned out to be a totally spoiled evening.

Keep On Doin’ It

As you might know, there’s this screenplay called Janni Schenck what I wrote. Cannes don’t want it, which is entirely what I predicted would happen, so I’m not that downhearted about it. Not least because everyone, absolutely everyone who’s read it thinks it’s really good. Even someone who refuses point blank to read it again because it’s upsetting thinks it’s good. That’s why she won’t read it again. That and the fact that kids like Janni killed some of her family once, a long time ago, but not so long ago that it’s not still upsetting when they’re brought to life as what they are. Which is just kids. Kids who’d been told everything they did was fun and good and pure and noble, kids who were told they were the saviours of their country. Kids who weren’t given the choice, by 1939, of saying that they didn’t want to join the Hitler Youth.

So, tough, Cannes. You missed it. You want to feel edgy and street watching films about horses shagging American inadequates then you go ahead with what you have. I hope it doesn’t put you off your butterscotch popcorn.

But after the meeting with Film Suffolk today I have work to do getting this made. They like it too. So if you’ll excuse me I’ll go and find a producer somewhere else. As well as around £10 million. All without scaring the horses.