We invite you to read an interview with Anno Saul, director of „Die Tür” – the movie where Mads Mikkelsen is trying to put the above words, taken from Cher’s evergreen, into effect.

Can you tell us how it all began? How did you stumbled upon Akif Pirincci’s book, which „Die Tür” is based on?

The screenplay author, Jan Berger, told me about the novel and about the fact, that the plot is very strong as a basic idea of a film.

Is „Die Tür” a faithful adaptation of the story, or have you just made it a foundation for your own ideas?

It´s a mixture between both: we took more than the basic idea, but we changed and added a lot, which is always necessary, because films and novels need different structures to succeed. A picture includes so many implicated emotional informaton, that you have to get rid of everything that leads to a double layer. Films must be told much more tied.

Mads Mikkelsen is kind of a „hot name” on today’s actors market. How did you convince him to take part in your movie?

Very simple, we have sent him the screenplay. He liked it right away. Then he called to ask me if I could come to Copenhagen to meet him. I did, we talked, then, when we knew we would shoot together we drank a lot of alcohol and the basic deal was made. The rest, which was not sooo simple, was done by the agent and the producer.

What kind of an actor and a man Mads is? Is he a nice and cool dude or rather a coldblooded professional focused on his work in 100%?

Both! He is very focused on his work, 100% prepared, super intelligent. He likes to work with the director, always asking questions, making suggestions, trying different things out. And then in the evening he is the nice and cool dude. And he had not a single spark of arrogance or vanity. You can have heaps of fun with this guy.

Can you tell us what the distribution plans for „Die Tür” are? Will it have a wide release? Across Europe, in the US maybe?

In Germany we start at 26 of November [We made this interview before that date – Stark]. There will be more release over Europe and the US, but the exact details are still under negotiation.

What’s your approach on the whole alternate reality/time travel theme? Is it just a starting point for telling an original story or did you took it seriously and made it really important for the feel of the whole movie?

Of course it is a conceptual base to tell the story of a second chance, which is quite human and not necessarily connected to the alternate reality/time travel . But if you do no take it serious the story becomes flat. Well it is hard to answer this qustion without giving away from the story.

Would you agree with a theory that we don’t see many really intelligent horrors/thrillers these days? I assume you tried to avoid the traps of making a simple, conventional, „hollywood-like” thriller?

Oh yes! This movie has definitely an European appeal. How we talk about the characters, how we use the camera, the cast, the whole setting: we didn´t want to copy any American thriller and we didn´t do that.

Akif Pirinçci is completely unknown in Poland, but I think that if your movie will turn out to be a success, perhaps some of his novels would be published in my country. Is „Die Tür” representative work of Pirinçci?

Yes, „Die Damalstür” (that´s the original title of the book) is a typical Pirinci-novel. You will love it. We call him here „The German Stephen King”.

Could you shed some light on your future plans?

I am still looking for good projects, working on some things, but far away from shooting. I want to go on with this Genre…. But everything is very much dependent on the success of „Die Tür”.

Thank you, Anno. Good luck with „Die Tür”!

Thanks for the interview and have fun with the movie!