You don’t change a winning team: Hamburg’s Trebitsch Entertainment is returning to Friuli for the second time to make two new TV movies about Commissario Laurenti, the amiable policeman created by novelist Veit Heinichen.
The movies will be based on the writer’s last two books, “Tod auf der warterliste” and “Der tod wirft lange schatten”.
An Australian girl with origins in the city of Trieste who returns for a holiday to solve a problem with an inheritance, a weapons depot dating back to the Second World War, an old enemy of Laurenti who is blackmailing old inhabitants of the city.
These are the elements of the latest mystery from Veit Heinichen, which sees Commissario Laurenti’s investigations taking him back in time to two unresolved murders which really took place in Trieste in the 70s.
“I dedicated 7 years of research to these two stories because I am particularly interested in authenticity, and I believe that the role of the novel is to throw light on the rules of the world we live in. I am always interested in local stories as long as they are open to a European dimension and Trieste is very fertile from this point of view”, the German author, who has lived in the capital of the Friuli region for over ten years, explained to Cinema&Video International.
“It is a city sandwiched between the sea and the Carso mountain range that lives with and by borders and its affected by very contemporary problems. There is an extremely high quality of life, a strong concentration of financial institutions and almost non-existent microcriminality, we need to ask ourselves why it is a place that hides such important mysteries.”
The first movies based on his novels “Gib jedem seinen eigenen tod” and “Die toten vom karst”, both produced by Trebitsch Entertainment in Friuli Venezia Giulia, with the support of the FVG Film Commission (cf. Cinema&Video 1-2- 2006), were broadcast successfully last June, on the first German channel ARD (around 9 million viewers).
“It was this success that encouraged us to repeat the experience in Friuli”, states the producer, Caterina Trebitsch, who will be returning to Trieste in March to begin location hunting, followed by filming, which is scheduled to continue until July.
“We had an excellent experience with Federico Poillucci. He provided us with very professional location scouts and the service was generally very prompt and efficient.”
Trebitsch Entertainment has already applied for another contribution from the Friuli Venezia Giulia Film Fund after the one it received last year.
“The cast of “Der tod wirft lange schatten” was almost entirely made up of German actors which meant we spent a lot of money on daily allowances, but we couldn’t disregard Trieste.
It is a particularly photogenic city and in these new movies we want to show more of it, including some of its more sophisticated corners. The new director, Finland’s Hannu Salonen, will leave for Trieste soon to look around the city and get some inspiration.”
As in the past, Veit Heinichen will take part in the location hunting, taking care to preserve the atmosphere of his novels. “In my last novel there is one particularly interesting location that I hope we will be able to use: the Val Rosandra, a valley in the Carso mountains, an extraordinary natural spectacle.”
Cinema&Video International 1/2-2007
