The film group of the Markt Schwaben high school brought Holger Gutt to the film.
Now he has produced his first feature film - a Transylvania road movie.
Markt Schwaben - For Holger Gutt, home is more than a place, “for me it is above all a feeling. You can feel at home in many moments. ”The 30-year-old has experienced a number of such moments in recent years. In Munich, where he lives today. In Markt Schwaben, where he grew up and went to the Franz-Marc-Gymnasium. In Transylvania. There, in what is now the center of Romania, he took a trip with his father. To the land of their ancestors, to the village where Andreas Gutt (71) was born. “The tour started with my parents 'house here, the destination was his parents' house in Weidenbach in Transylvania,” says son Holger Gutt, who was born in Erding. He has a film company, he mainly produces and markets documentaries. He had taken a film team with him for the road trip with his father. This resulted in:“Longing for an unknown homeland”, Holger Gutt's first own feature film (75 minutes), which premieres on Sunday, July 11th, in the Arri cinema in Munich. Three performances, with the exception of five places they are currently sold out, said Gutt on Thursday.
Markt Schwaben: From the 6th grade in the film group
The passion for film was sparked in the Franz-Marc-Gymnasium (FMG).
“The FMG is not entirely innocent,” says Holger Gutt and smiles.
From the 6th grade to the Abitur in the 13th grade, he was a member of teacher Peter Rohmfeld's FMG film group.
"Many of my old classmates from the group worked on the current film."
After graduating from high school in 2010, Holger Gutt completed an apprenticeship as a media designer for image and sound.
Before that, on his 18th birthday, he founded his first own film production company.
With this he had specialized in image films - but deep down in his heart his love was always for documentaries.
So he founded a new company, Filmkultur Filmproduktion und Vertrieb GmbH, which he runs together with Michaela Smykalla.
With the aim of “bringing culture and socially relevant documentaries onto the market and producing them,” he says.
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The film has its premiere on Sunday, July 11th - it will be shown in the Arri cinema in Munich.
© Film culture
In his first long film, which is completely self-produced and financed, the search for home plays the leading role.
The search for the cultural roots.
Holger and Andreas Gutt drove 1600 kilometers across Europe by car.
You have been to meetings of Saxon Transylvanians, you have been to the home day of Transylvanians in Germany, you have visited parishes and places in Romania and an old friend of your father's.
Travel from home to home
At the end of the trip, they stood in front of Andreas Gutt's parents' house.
"Strangers now live in the house, and we didn't know how we would be received or whether we were even allowed into the house." The answer to this can be seen in the film.
Why did he even go to Transylvania?
“Whenever I saw something about Transylvania, it triggered me,” he replies.
He doesn't know why.
“I come from a dead culture.” He wanted to find out.
Because despite all the love for Bavaria and the culture here, he feels dressed in leather pants.
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Conversation with Transylvanians.
© Film culture
When he went with a group from the Kronstadt region to the costume parade at the start of the Munich Oktoberfest in Transylvania in 2017, "I could have been crying for joy the whole time," he says.
Because at that moment he was able to bring his two worlds together.
This costume parade is one of the last scenes in the film "Longing for an Unknown Homeland".
“It was a long project,” says Holger Gutt.
The film can be seen in the cinema for the first time on Sunday.
On this Sunday, July 11th, Holger Gutt celebrates his 31st birthday.
www.siebenbuergen-heimat.de
www.filmkultur.de/sehnsucht-nach-einer-unbekannten-heimat