German Film Festival documentary made after creators Julius Drost and Moritz Henneberg had film Butty stolen
Student filmmakers Julius Drost and Moritz Henneberg upload their animated short film butt They hoped people would like it on YouTube in late 2023. But as their story about a clumsy pet robot began to garner likes and thousands of views every day, they thought they might have something more on their hands than just a passable student movie.
So they took butt Inspired by a conversation part-time tennis coach Henneberg had with filmmaker Christopher Zwickler, a client of the tennis camp in Türkiye where he worked, he turned off the Internet and began submitting it to film festivals.
The duo received a letter of invitation to a festival in early 2024. Bingo. But before they could pat themselves on the back, they received a follow-up email: The invitation was canceled because it turned out the movie they sent had been stolen.
Indeed it was. But they were not the thieves.
Thousands of miles away in the United States, another student, high school student Samuel Felinton, was marketing the film as his own. Different title – T-130 in its place butt – new credits and a slightly abbreviated version, but at heart it is unmistakably the same movie.
On a morning chat show on local television, he was fielding questions about how he made his wonderful film, which was making its way around the festival circuit (eventually opening in Milan, London, Moscow, New York, Toronto and more).
“Lots of designs, lots of drawings, lots of inspiration, paintings,” he rambled on, clearly having no idea how digital animation worked. “It’s just piece by piece, then you put them together, color them, the animation is ready.”
The young Germans who made the film were understandably outraged when they saw this. So they decide to respond the only way they know how: by making a movie about it.
Zwickler immediately came on board as producer, enlisting his collaborator Igor Plischke to direct and help shape the story, which begins as a revenge tale and eventually evolves into something much more complex.
“Going to America and confronting the man was something the kids decided long ago,” Plischke says of the documentary he made about the saga. Talented Mr. Fcurrently screening at the German Film Festival in Australia. “The confrontation part was there from the beginning. How It was something I was more involved in.
‘Everything is a kaleidoscope of slightly different emotions.’
Igor Plischke, director
Felinton was easy to track down. “He’s someone who is very, very active on the Internet. You just Google him and you find everything,” Plischke says.
As depicted in the film, the man was a prolific YouTuber and had a large internet presence as the CEO of Felinton Inc, with registered businesses in fashion, gadget making and other industries, none of which he actually did anything at all. He spoke with confidence and conviction about his desire to have a tower dedicated to his company in the middle of Morgantown, West Virginia.
“I think it’s more about the concept of being someone than understanding exactly how to get there,” Plischke says of the young American’s passion for jumping.
Casting Felinton as a kind of modern-day, tech-savvy Walter Mitty character, the film spends much of its time tracking the kids and their director as they hide out in Morgantown, trying to stay out of sight until they’re ready for a big reveal later. But when the time comes, it’s a strangely depressing experience, as the young Germans are faced with a “villain” who can’t even begin to deny what he did but also can’t grasp the wrongness of it.
“I think there were always two sides [to how they felt]”Not just because there were two boys, but also in terms of their perception of him,” says Plischke. “On the one hand, he stole from them. But they were also amazed by how confidently he explained it. [the world] It’s about the making of the movie. So they were sort of amazed by the stars. “I guess everything is just a kaleidoscope of different emotions.”
Do you think there’s a sense in which Felinton represents a widespread malaise in the modern world, where people clamor for fame but seem unwilling to actually put in the work that would guarantee it?
“Yes, yes. But honestly, I don’t agree with labeling someone who hasn’t done the work as not worthy of success,” Plischke says. “If someone is very charismatic and can speak well and can start that spark and make you fall in love with this project, that’s something that Samuel did very well. And that’s something that the kids weren’t really… they just thought the movie was going to bring them success.”
Plischke, too, does not want to see a representation of an intergenerational trend in Felinton.
“This story could not have happened without the internet and the digital world,” he says. “But Samuel is a very special character who might be living in the 1950s, going to Montebello to meet Dickie Greenleaf.”
From here Talented Mr. F. But at least he’s not as villainous as Tom Ripley.
“You never know,” Plischke jokes. “But he has the skills and the knowledge, mentally cognitively and verbally at that level. I respected him a lot. I don’t know if the direction he’s taking is the right one, but he has talent in different areas and that inspired me a lot.”
Talented Mr. F It is being screened at the German Film Festival. Detail: germanfilmfestival.com.au
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