Rosie

Director's Statement

Every screenwriter and director probably toys with the idea at some stage of dealing with the story of their own family in a film. For me, family is a universal subject and I think that in every family – however mundane its story may appear at first sight – we can find all the relevant themes that make up the human condition. My first jottings for ROSIE date back to 1995. I recounted tales about my mother at that time to the Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr who thought I absolutely had to make a film about her. Twelve years on when the opportunity came up to collaborate with Cobra Film AG in Zurich, I had the courage to do so. Of the three projects on the table, producer Susann Rüdlinger chose ROSIE and together with my co-writer Rudolf Nadler we developed the version which is now the film. My hometown of Altstätten in the east of Switzerland, a small family with two children, a daughter and a son, the father who died prematurely, and had been a professional boxer, the speculation about his homosexuality, the mother’s isolation – all this autobiographical material provides the framework for the film’s narrative. But within this framework I have been quite free. As it was not my intention to give a faithful account of my family’s story. It is only in the character of Rosie that I strove for maximum authenticity. Of course, the female lead, Sibylle Brunner, brought her own personality and touches to the role. But in the screenplay the character is created as closely as possible in my mother’s image. She died ten years ago. The film is a tribute to her.