Jordi García, from the animation studio 23lunes, tells Verne that one night during the weeks of confinement, "later than he should have", he stumbled upon one of the most popular videos on networks in recent months in Spain: Hermann Schreiber, the elderly man with Alzheimer's who played the harmonica and whom Tamara Sayar, his caretaker, led him to believe that the applause at 20.00 on the balconies was for him and his private concert. After his story became popular, those applauses really began to be for Schreiber: the neighbors began to come out to listen to him and applaud him. "I thought it was very beautiful and a fantasy in itself, and from there came the idea of doing something with it," García explains by phone. In this way, he began working on the creation of Hermann, a short film that seeks to honor this story and all the "heroes of March 2020."
Alzheimer's patient Hermann in the video where he plays the harmonica while his neighbors applaud.
The short, published on June 16, accumulates thousands of views on YouTube in the original post, and has also been broadcast through different Twitter and Facebook profiles. In it, the story of this old man is told through cartoons, changing the harmonica for the violin and adding touches of fantasy. At the beginning, it is seen how the protagonist Hermann prepares in the solitude of his dressing room when his assistant, a role that pays tribute to Tamara, tells him that the audience is ready for his performance. After a few moments in which the violin is seen playing before the full audience of an auditorium, the image changes to the room of a residence. Hermann was actually imagining everything and his daughter tells him on the phone that she wants to see him soon.
"I wanted to explore what Hermann was thinking when he did those concerts. The only real thing is actually what you live, ”says García. To carry out the short film, the director couldn't wait long and quickly got to work “Although I had gone to bed very late the night before, that day I woke up quite early because I was itching to do so now. I started writing the script and in half an hour I had it ready. ” In order to carry out his idea, García had the support of 15 other people from 23lunes, who did the project telematically for almost two months in an altruistic way.
In this way, practically all parts of the short have been created from home "through Zoom or Skype", says García, who has also directed the short film. The exception occurred in the last week and a half, when the team finally faced each other to make the last color adjustments in the office.
In order to convey the story as well as possible, from the beginning of the project the short film team contacted both Tamara Sayar and the children of Teresa Domínguez, Hermann's wife. About the latter, García explains: "The only thing they did not want was to expose him too much, since due to their situation they have not granted interviews either." With whom they have had a close relationship has been with Sayar, to whom, according to the director, they wanted to give something "made without profit, that would leave him a good memory of these months." A purpose that, according to the director, seems fulfilled. "Tamara told us that watching the script he had felt the same as the people he felt when he saw his video told him," says García.
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