He was an icon of the disco era of the eighties. Now Fancy is making his debut as an actor - in “A Callgirl for Ghosts” by Klaus Lemke.
A quarter of a century ago Klaus Lemke sent his wonderful Munich chaos couple Cleo Kretschmer and Wolfgang Fierek into the desert: "The slut and the gravedigger" was the name of the comedy in which the two Schwabing birds sought their luck in Las Vegas. On August 23, the director will present his new film at the Munich pop-up film festival in the drive-in cinema at the Zenith. An undertaker also appears in “A call girl for ghosts” - and for this (secondary) role Lemke has dug up an artist from the music circus: disco icon Fancy.
An occupation coup. The singer, who was born Manfred Alois Segieth in Munich in 1946, produced for Hansa Records, for example, before conquering stages and dance floors with his own numbers in the eighties. "Chinese Eyes", "Come inside", "Lady of Ice" and of course "Flames of Love" were among his hits.
Klaus Lemke
© Klaus Haag
"Back then, Fancy had an incredible attraction for everyone who found Giorgio Moroder too enormous, too much a drug," remembers Lemke in an interview with our newspaper. Fancy is "disco without drugs - even if that doesn't really work". He met the musician by chance in the copy oasis on Amalienstraße. “The only people around are strolling students who have no money - and me.” Then he and the “folk Moroder” got into conversation: “He told me that he had to go to Moscow for a sold out concert. I thought it was a joke. ”Lemke, who proves with every production that sparkling films are made beyond“ Papas Staatskino ”, was friends with Moroder in the seventies, but he liked Fancy's“ Slice me nice ”because of that Texts ("It's Time for Action and I want it from you."). So after the meeting in the copy oasis he cast him for “Callgirl”, which was shot last summer. As always with the 79-year-old, the finale of his “Maxvorstadt Ballads” was created without funding, without a script and only with amateurs. Fancy plays a singer who has had his prime, works as an undertaker and wants to get back to the microphone. “I took part out of respect and for fun,” he reveals in an interview. “Klaus has a good name. But you never know what he's going to do with the material. ”By the way: The sold out concert in Moscow wasn't a joke, of course not:“ They just love the eighties. ”
“A call girl for ghosts” is shown at the pop-up film festival
“A call girl for ghosts” doesn't just tell of the undertaker's comeback. It's actually about “the blonde in the white dress! In the white Ford Gran Torino! ”, As Lemke sums up. The woman was “champagne for the eyes - poison for the rest. She disposed of her victims in Venice. In the channel. ”In fact, there is a lot of crime in the atmospherically dense film - and it has a surprisingly poetic ending. The film was shot in the few hundred meters between the Copy Oasis on Amalienstraße and the Art Academy, where many of Lemke's Munich films have been played in recent years. Although he had to give up his apartment around the corner, the director is at home here and knows what makes people tick on the street. You can tell in every setting.
As with the predecessor “New Gods in the Maxvorstadt” (2019), Lemke is now making his way of working the topic. It is subversive when he ponders connection errors in front of the camera. In another scene, Raffael Betzler, who has long been part of the inventory of his films, stands on the street in his fantasy uniform: “You ordered me. 7.30 p.m. Shooting ?! "-" For which film? "-" 'Call girl for ghosts' "-" Oh. "
Lemke has just finished “Berlin izza Bitch”
Lemke has just returned from Berlin, where he made “Berlin izza Bitch”, his contribution to the Berlinale in spring. “It's rejected just like the 13 previous films. But in 30 years' time I'll still send them films - when they're all dead. ”And anyone who knows him a little knows that he'll do the same thing.
