INTERVIEW: In ‘Köln 75,’ the enthusiasm of a teenage promoter makes music history
Photo: Köln 75 stars Mala Emde as concert promoter Vera Brandes. Photo courtesy of Zeitgeist Films / Provided by official website with permission.
The new film Köln 75 follows the real-life story of how American jazz pianist Keith Jarrett came to play a legendary concert at the Cologne Opera House in 1975. The impetus for the gig was thanks to Vera Brandes, played by Mala Emde in the film, who was a teenage promoter with a dream of making music history. And she did.
Ido Fluk is the writer and director of Köln 75, which opens today, Oct. 17, at the IFC Center in New York City, followed by an Oct. 24 opening at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles.
“It’s really connecting with audiences, which is exciting,” Fluk said in a recent phone interview. “I think it does a good job of reinterpreting a piece that a lot of people know, a legendary record that a lot of people own. And when people watch the film, they go home and put on the record, and it sounds different. I think that’s one of the best things that a piece of art can do.”
What drove Fluk to tell the story was not the original record by Jarrett, famous though it may be. It was actually the story of Brandes that hooked him and sent him on this multi-year journey of creating Köln 75.
“I fell in love with the story,” he said. “I fell in love reading that a German teenager was pretending that she was much older and had booked the opera house in Cologne. It’s a giant room to put on a concert by this jazz pianist who at the time was kind of down and out, thrown out of an American label contract, touring Europe in a tiny car, and then there was this teenager masquerading as a promoter, who brought him over to Cologne. And then he came, and there was the wrong piano on stage. And he’s like, ‘I’m not going to play this,’ and walked away, and for that woman, who was 18 at the time, this was everything. And she made it happen somehow, and it became a legendary concert and a best-selling record.”
The director added: “I think that story was really special because it reminded me of any important work of art ever made; it’s in the obstructions, in the hardships, in the way that we deal with problems that something special is made, and that’s how I fell in love with this story.”
Fluk focuses on the power of youth in the film. He believes there is an enthusiasm exhibited by Brandes and shared by teenagers around the world, and this energy should be showcased and hopefully preserved. The director was interested in how an 18-year-old could put caution to the wind and capture her dreams, which stands in contrast to the older folks in the movie, who seem a bit let down with life.
“I think there’s something about youth that is really important to hold on to, and I think that’s what the film kind of tries to showcase, where we have our passion guiding us in everything we do,” the writer-director said. “And if [a young person] thinks something’s good, then it’s great. You’re going to change the world to make everyone hear what you’re hearing, and she was one of those people. She saw him play, and she was like, ‘Holy shit, this is incredible. I’m going to fill the opera house in Cologne with people to come hear this,’ by the way on a chilly Friday night, late at night, in the winter in Germany. And she did all that, and I think it’s this fire that we have when we’re young that I think we shouldn’t lose as adults as life grinds us down. I think this film celebrates that.”
At this point in Fluk’s career, he can identify with both Jarrett and Brandes. He finds himself pulled between those two figures and what they represent.
“On the one hand, you have basically a woman who produces a concert,” he said. “You have to push, and you have to fight so many battles. And you have to leave it all on the field just to make something happen, and it’s not getting easier. And then at the same time, you have this down-and-out pianist who is just trying to make his art, just trying to find an audience, and he can’t find his audience at the time in the States. So he goes to Europe to make his play to find his audience, and you see a lot of American filmmakers doing that these days, going to Europe to make films because of the state of independent film in this country. So I really could identify with both.”
Fluk has been on a long journey with Köln 75. The movie played the film festival circuit, won acclaim in Germany, and now it’s ready to hit movie theaters in the United States.
“I never have enough of watching people watch it,” the director admitted. “It’s such an audience film, a film that people connect to in a very different way from anything else that I’ve been involved in, so it’s such a joy to kind of see how audiences react and how people come to me after screenings and say, ‘Hey, this helps me remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. This helps push me along in things that are stuck with my work, with my art, with my projects.’ I think a lot of people are really inspired by this woman who would not take no for an answer.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Köln 75, written and directed by Ido Fluk, opens today, Oct. 17, at the IFC Center in New York City. Click here for more information.
