Music and Apocalypse

Interview with the director Max Linz

Why did you choose the university as the setting for your film?

I set my films in institutions in which a public debate on social issues takes place. In these institutions, I find parallels to my own work – perhaps the most important being that my films, like these institutions, are for the most part publicly funded. In 2004, I began studying at university just as the Bologna Process was coming into dominance. In seemingly the same moment, an official competition was launched between universities; it was named the German Universities Excellence Initiative. Such a competi- tion, which puts funding for science – and a lot of academics’ professional existence at stake – in the long run crea- tes few winners and a lot of losers. That circumstance didn’t previously exist within the german university system.

Can you describe the process of creating your script for Music and Apocalypse?

I wrote the screenplay with Nicolas von Passavant, a literary scholar from Basel. Together we drew a story outline for the film to start with. Between our writing sessions, we were going over the education policies and philosophical stances that certain universities were proposing in their mission statements. We were also considering image films they were producing, and other forms of promotion. Regardless of these institutions’ academic reputation, there is often something unintentionally tragicomic about their self-presentation. The constant emphasis on ‘selling’ the institution is so obvious.

How did you cast the actors for your film?

Most of the castings were based on previous collaborations. In my past films, Sarah Ralfs has always managed through her performance to lighten the skepticism that sometimes arises in my writing. Philipp Hauss joined the project early on. In addition to his engagement in theater, he also works in academia. Casting Sophie Rois as the head of the institute was the hope of everyone involved from the beginning. She makes perfect sense for the part and for the film. Rois has an artistic sensibility that I can only describe as unerring. She is a legitimate authority.

Can you talk about your decision to pose digital, VR imagery – projective of climate change – beside art historical motifs of the descent, particularly by including religious painting in the film?

The VR scenes and the paintings are independent figures unto themselves in the film. They both exercise a certain power, a certain agency. They bring into question the social contract by proposing cautionary visions of the future. They instruct their viewer how to lead a ‘devout’ life – essentially how to not end up in hell. In thinking about climate change, and in thinking about capitaldriven competition, it is more important that society find ways – in part by narratives and images – to abolish hell, rather than fear it.

Could the Chilean project Cybersyn, Phoebes roommate’s research project, be such a narrative?

It definitely implies a great amount of optimism. Through the coup d’état and everything that was destroyed with it, hell reenters the image. But other perspectives into the present are imaginable.