BLACK SHEEP (first working title was "Goodbye Reagan") is an anarchist German comedy, sharp and ironical, but full of love for his characters. It is about Berlin people without money, five groups of people searching for all kind of cheap tricks or mad ideas to find money, become rich and famous or get laid. They all fail tragically in a funny way, but win in another way. The producers of BLACK SHEEP are breaking taboos in almost every way, but have nevertheless high ambitions: Oliver Rihs and Olivier Kolb want to entertain in style, the same way they would like to be entertained themselves.

• BLACK SHEEP is on purpose fully independently produced. That requires a lot of courage - to finance such a project fully by yourself. What has lead you to this decision?

OLIVER RIHS

Courage? It was mainly fun that lead us to this project. The fun to really work without film subsidies or any other industry support and to be free to do what you like, fully on your own. To do a film again like in the times when we started, when we did our first movies – with chuzpe, maybe even naïve, playful or bold. The courage was that we invested all our savings for the joy of making it.

• Did you have to make painful compromises in your earlier work because of extreme restrictions?

OLIVIER KOLB

Well that was a reason to risk a completely independent project. From the idea, the look, the approach of the heads of each production department, the efficient, closely connected crew to the story, the actors. I believe that you need a clear vision that leaves the rest open, if you want to inspire people’s enthusiasm. The most exciting for people is the promise to be able to do something that you always wanted to do and to do it in your own way. And that is the center of our project. The collective joy of making something in an unrestricted way.

OLIVER RIHS

We all know that – from the first line the question: will the producer, the commissioning editor, the subsidy comission or whoever decides abot money, like it? The censorship within from start. I just wanted to do for a change something that I would love to see with the firm belief that one can find in this way an enthusiastic audience more directly and honestly.

• Would you like to continue in this unrestricted way?

OLIVIER KOLB

Absolutely. But this would mean that we would need to re-create a similar situation and stories that give a lot room for characters, grotesque and play with style…

OLIVER RIHS

I want to continue experimenting. There are so many alternatives to shooting a film with a big, fat crew from a storyboard in an industrial way in 5 or 6 weeks. To trigger a creative process off, in the moment when you are at the location, and let it grow from there, is so much closer to real life. Another benefit of independent production was that we could stop and start whenever we wanted. The intermissions were not dictated by the production process, but by the creative flow.

• This film has an exceptional German star cast. How did you manage to get all that names into the project?

OLIVER RIHS

Some actors I wanted in the movie before the script was written. All of them loved the characters from the first beginning especially Robert Stadlober, Tom Schilling, Marc Hosemann, Jule Böwe, Bruno Cathomas, Frank Giering, Milan Peschel. Their cool acting style carries the whole project along and is integral part of the movie. It would have been much more difficult to get them through the conventional channels. But we just came along and said "Hey, we think you’re cool , what do you think about your project, because we can’t pay you. Would you still like to be part?" and they liked that. The promise was that I wouldn’t try to keep total control, but instead let them put something of themselves or their favourite characters into the film. The set design was, for example, different to my idea, but I thought "I want to utilise that". If they all love the spirit of what we do, I want to go with the creative flow, not keep everything under my thumb. The potential of all people working on a film can enrich the project enormously, I wanted to use that.

• Why black&white?

OLIVIER KOLB

As a photographer I started with b&w. In b&w you can "read" the characters better the set disappear to a background – and you can use any light source, no matter what color the light has. We sometimes used neon or builder’s lamps for certain scenes. I gave most of my light budget to the set design department. Instead I tried classical b&w (plus some color effects) with all sort of light sources. I light up the whole set so that I can shoot without changes into any direction. That leaves the actors a much bigger variety of acting options.

• Your film has quite provocative moments, did the fun of free production make you consciously search for breaking conventions?

OLIVIER KOLB

These are all little stories that you can experience live, every day in Berlin-Kreuzberg. We just developed the absurd, grotesque elements in our neighborhood a bit more.

OLIVER RIHS

I liked the subversive element in it. This is an area that has been neglected for too long and seems to be hardly existing anymore, especially in the German cinema. But not subversion just for its own sake, rather as a way to change perception a bit, showing visuals that you don’t see everyday in the cinema or on TV. Challenging people’s perception…

• What’s next?

OLIVIER KOLB

Our first aim and largest potential is the cinema. The film is highly entertaining. But we have already first interests of private broadcasters in Germany. We will see. However, we just feel that we somehow owe this picture to the cinema audience. So we will try to get it there in the best possible way.

Interview by Christoph Lukas