The Munich pastor Rainer Maria Schiessler stirs up the church.
Now he provides the inspiration for the new series by Franz Xaver Bogner.
The film will also be shot in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen.
Bad Heilbrunn
- In the 1980s, parts of the cult series "Somehow and anyway" were created in Bad Tölz.
Director Franz Xaver Bogner is currently shooting again in the Tölzer Land: in the municipality of Bad Heilbrunn, in Dietramszell and in Piesenkam, his film team is working on scenes for a new series that also has the potential for cult status.
At least it's about a kind of cult figure from the religious field.
The screenplay of "Himmel, Herrgott, Sakrament" is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by the Munich church rebel Pastor Rainer Maria Schiessler.
Filming for the new Bogner series in Bad Heilbrunn - It's about Munich church rebels
The motif that the team from "Himmel, Herrgott, Sakrament" chose as a location in the Unterkarpfsee district of Heilbrunn is quite remote.
From the Gasthaus Reindlschmiede – this is where the crew has set up their “base” with catering, mobile homes for wardrobe and make-up, and trucks with rooms for the actors – the route leads over small side streets and finally a path through the meadows to a hidden little house with, well, retro charm.
A Munich private individual normally uses it as a weekend home and has rented it out to the production as a backdrop.
For the shooting, the location is known as "Jagdhaus".
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Concentrated work on the set: Franz Xaver Bogner controls the scenes on the screen.
© Arndt Pröhl
On the day that the Tölzer Kurier is visiting the shooting, a scene about an unequal father-son couple is to be created here.
The protagonist of the series is the pastor Hans Reiser, who is modeled after Rainer Maria Schiessler.
The role is played by Stephan Zinner, known to the public as Metzger Simmerl from the Eberhofer crime novels or as Prime Minister Markus Söder in the Nockherberg Singspiel.
I like characters who live their everyday anarchism and like to mess with their environment
Franz Xaver Bogner, director
He meets his father in the "Jagdhaus", played by the Lower Bavarian cabaret veteran Sigi Zimmerschied, who lives here as a solitary hermit.
The son has to arbitrate, because the senior, according to Bogner, was "quirky and crazy" after the well was turned off, locked an officer in a shed and is now guarding him with a gun in his hand.
Turbulent, cheerful and unconventionally Bavarian, the series with six parts of 45 minutes each is apparently again and in this respect it ties in with a TV tradition that Bogner helped shape with "Irgendwie und habenso", "Café Meineid" or "München 7". on.
A type like Pastor Schiessler fits in well.
"I like characters who live their everyday anarchism and like to mess with their environment," says Bogner.
“Heaven, Lord, Sacrament”: Rainer Maria Schiessler is a role model for a pastor figure
He had known Schiessler personally beforehand.
The unconventional pastor even had two guest appearances in "München 7" - and in the new series "we are working on a cameo appearance for him", reveals Bogner - that is, on a short guest appearance in the background.
By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Bad Tölz newsletter.
However, Bogner emphasizes that it is not a film biography of the pastor.
Some of the basic data agree with Schiessler: that he is being transferred from the country to a problem community in Munich, where the pews are empty and the number of people leaving is high.
From there, however, Bogner, as the lead screenwriter, freely developed the plot and the characters together with Marcus Pfeiffer and Stefan Betz.
Stephan Zinner plays a pastor in "Heaven, Lord, Sacrament"
The topic means that the conversations on the fringes of the shooting quickly turn to something profound: questions about faith and the church.
Pastor actor Stephan Zinner admits that he was “protestant” – before he left the church.
He met Rainer Maria Schiessler to prepare for his role and attended a service.
"The booth was full, he inspired the people."
What interests him most about the figure is "that someone is convinced of their path and follows it - no matter what impacts come left and right".
In the series, Anne Schäfer plays a single mother who becomes closer to the pastor.
For the project, she was initially enthusiastic about Franz Xaver Bogner's brief, undisguised, sometimes nasty dialogues, she says - but of course also the topic.
"I like going to churches," she says - "although I prefer it when there are no services taking place there." But she has her problems with the church as an institution.
"She could offer something that many people are looking for: togetherness and support - if she were to change," the actress muses.
Ideally, the series could provide impetus for discussions, Anne Schäfer hopes.
40 years ago we received a complaint for blasphemy - and today even the BR makes such a series
Cabaret artist and actor Sigi Zimmerschied
Sigi Zimmerschied feels quite comfortable in the role of the stubborn father who is angry that his son has become a pastor - "not because faith is a problem for him, but because his son is surrendering to this church apparatus".
He himself is also working through a piece of the "traumas" of his youth in Lower Bavaria, the cabaret artist teases.
"I'm against narrowness, against any closed worldview - whether that's in communism or Catholicism," he says and remembers his first program, "The Heavenly Conference", conceived with Bruno Jonas.
"40 years ago we received a complaint for blasphemy - and today even the BR makes such a series," he scoffs.
It is a co-production of BR, ORF and maze pictures.
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"Weird and crazy": cabaret artist Sigi Zimmerschied plays the pastor's father.
© Arndt Pröhl
When Zimmerschied sits in front of the shed with the gun in his hand while shooting, what he just said just before reverberates.
"I have a grandfather who shot his rival in a fit of anger.
The hairdresser who did his hair, my father and me, says that I have the same twirls of hair as he does..." On stage and in front of the camera he can channel this "aggression potential well", he says enigmatically.
Filming also in Dietramszell and Piesenkam
Around 50 people belong to the film team that is on duty at the “Reindlschmiede” and the “Jagdhaus” on this day.
All processes are clocked.
Producer Marlene Schlegel explains that a funeral scene will be filmed in Dietramszell in the next few weeks.
And a farm in Piesenkam becomes the home of the pastor's cousin in the film.
However, the series action pretends that these locations are all in the Rosenheim district.
That's why they chose locations that don't look too alpine, says Schlegel.
However, the main motifs are the churches of St. Margaret and St. Korbinian in Munich-Sendling.
In the series, they merge into one: one provides the interior, the other the exterior views.
In 2023, all of this will be shown in the main evening program on Bavarian television - a continuation is not excluded.
By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Bad Tölz newsletter.
