“Eine Partie Ungelegenheiten” and a short story of how it was made

The plot of Eine Partie Ungelegenheiten:

1871: In the course of the founding of the German Empire, the young sovereign Grand Duchess Henriette Luise already has to deal with all kinds of bureaucracy and tiring negotiations. To make matters worse, she falls in love against her will with the boastful bon vivant Prince Phillip Josef. In the turmoil of political events, this “inconvenient and fatal distraction” is not welcome to her at all.

Well, let's put it this way: certain circumstances gave me the necessary inspiration for Henriette's emotional chaos at the time. Because the plot and the character of Henriette were in fact already clear to me before I even decided on the year 1871.

What followed was a long period of planning and of trying to get the financing off the ground. And without a team, no film! And I may say: we had a truly terrific team and an outstanding cast.

Nine months after the screenplay was completed, the production of “Eine Partie Ungelegenheiten” officially started in early summer 2022. This means that rehearsals began with the concept rehearsal and the costumes were made or sourced. The costume stock of the Staatstheater Mainz helped out here, which, after long research and the study of historical clothing, resulted in a real “battle of costumes”. Since I set myself the standard of working in a truly “historically correct” way, the costumes were accordingly elaborate. I felt enormous respect for Luise (HR), who delivered a brilliant acting performance for a week in a hot August wearing four petticoats, a bustle and a tightly laced corset! Mind you, she already had to endure two hours of make-up every day. To this day I am sorry that I sometimes “burnt” her ear with the curling iron.

After the exhausting but very fulfilling shoot at Schloss Birstein, which felt like a journey through time, everyone was completely worn out at first.

Three months later, the last scenes were shot in the old town of Gelnhausen. The team, above all our terrific cinematographer Ole Schreiter, initially had serious doubts as to how a crew of twenty was supposed to fit into a tiny old wine cellar, and the hazer (a kind of fog machine) did not exactly improve visibility in the dark. So everyone was very glad that the cellar was located directly in one of the most picturesque streets of Gelnhausen, which we more or less besieged over the course of the weekend. The shoot was concluded by the unbelievably loud shots of a black powder hussar carbine in the town park above Gelnhausen on a Sunday afternoon. Getting the permit for this was not exactly easy either. From then on, at least for that weekend, the whole of Gelnhausen was probably not on the best of terms with this production. We could be glad that all this happened in the capable and, of course, authorised hands of Jörg Hartmann and Oliver Zeuner of the Légion de Mayence e.V.

A lot of time then passed in the editing suite at Mastlicht. Cinematographer Ole Schreiter was also intensively occupied with the colour grading from then on, just as sound engineer Sebastian Göldenitz took care of the sound recordings, which turned out to be somewhat problematic.

One of the last steps was the recording of the film score. With the enchanting sound of the violin and the violoncello, the film got its very own music.

After two years of intensive work by many busy hands, the film finally celebrated its premiere on 7 May 2023 at the charming Kino Gelnhausen.

It was a great pleasure and honour for me to work with everyone who made this project possible. Thank you very much!

The short film “Eine Partie Ungelegenheiten” is funded by the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, the Lions Club Gelnhausen and the Masonic lodge of Gelnhausen. The film was supported by the Offener Kanal Offenbach and the film production company Mastlicht.