“This film understands that the happiest moments only reveal their importance after they have passed,” our own writer John Lynn said about September Afternoon, the sophomore feature effort by German director Nicolaas Schmidt. Built from repetition, silence, and fleeting sensations the film is one of the more transcendent and hypnotic entries in this year’s Locarno festival. Shahran Morshed interviewed Schmidt and asked about the film’s specific setting at the end of summer, the reasons for choosing audiovisuals over dialogue, and the use of color in Schmidt’s distinct style.

SM: September Afternoon is having its premiere at Locarno. How did you first get the idea for this film?

NS: I personally went through such a situation myself, and this time I actually recognized the metaphor and ambivalent, insane documentary quality in it immediately afterwards. And then I instantly regretted not having captured this real moment, live, as a documentary – but I didn’t have a friend with a camera on site anyway.

SM: September is that time when summer is slowly ending. Why did you choose this specific season and mood for your story?

NS: With the title, I simply expanded on the mentioned metaphor. If you ask about the reason for the choice of season and time: yes, it’s exactly because of that. I personally suffer from it a lot every year. This endless period in which it slowly gets colder is almost unbearable for me – I would prefer a hard cut immediately to the winter solstice, with this perspective and tendency of heading upwards – towards light and warmth. But even then, there remains this certain fear of not having fully respected every hour of sunshine in the moment during the previous summer – and used it to recharge in advance.

SM: Why do you prefer letting the visuals and sounds do the talking instead of having actors speak?

NS: Firstly, I am often bothered by acting that is not believable – whether that is due to too little time during the shoot, the actors, or the written dialogues themselves is something I still want to figure out. So I am simply extremely critical there.

But what is probably much more essential is the fact that I have negative experiences with verbal communication that is far too long and often. What bothers me is less the words themselves, and more the illusion that one understands the other fully and correctly. Especially my questioning about this doubt in understanding for example is often misconstrued immediately as a negative response, i.e. criticism – even though the opposite is usually the case. So at some point, far too late, I came to prefer a more open, audiovisual communication, where it is permanently clear that everything is also or only the recipient’s interpretation.

SM: Your films have a very distinct style. What are your thoughts on this unique approach to filmmaking that is entirely your own?

NS: I don’t know how to answer that. I just choose the ‘style’ to fit the respective work; my documentary essay films are different, and the video art works are once again much more rigorous and reduced. And in the longer works that play with narration, this specific manner is the way I have found – a way that I can and like to walk and want to expand and fine-tune further. But I wouldn’t even know what specifically is distinct or uniquely individual there in detail. That’s more just a special mix, I guess.

SM: Music is a major pillar in your films, and September Afternoon is no exception. How do you choose your music? Could you tell us a bit about this musical process?

NS: I find these during the very long development process – usually there isn’t even a concrete film approach yet. Sometimes there is a very specific track that I consciously or unconsciously carry around for years and that is waiting to be (re-)found and integrated during the development process of questioning and associating. I generally collect every tiny idea in extensive, initially chaotic notes.

SM: We often watch a single scene for a long time, which allows us to form our own thoughts and reflections. As Tarkovsky famously said, “A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books,” and the same applies to film. What is your philosophy behind the use of long takes?

NS: Exactly this one. I also like films as a tool and an opportunity to get into an associating mental drifting away that initiates one’s own thoughts, and for that, time is a must.

SM: The colors in your films seem to speak for themselves. What was your vision regarding the color palette and lighting for September Afternoon?

NS: Faded colors and flat light can only be consistent with the metaphor of the earlier questions, that is perhaps almost too obvious. Sunsets and nightfall are something special in that regard. With those I am fascinated by the contradiction that overly saturated colors in film are understood as unrealistically exaggerated, whereas in real life experiences even much more intense colors actually occur in the sky, which also seems unbelievable but are simply accepted. I find it challenging to depict strong saturation through a barely perceptible increase – a saturation that, while maybe still seeming unbelievable, is nonetheless accepted just as it is in the real world, perhaps with the result of provoking similarly intense impressions, consciously or unconsciously.

SM: Was the film scripted? Could you walk us through your overall shooting process?

NS: It is basically an expanded, fictionalized documentation. The script mainly served to capture every detail for the shoot and post-production and to be able to shoot all images as efficiently as possible despite a tight budget, meaning only a few shooting days. Thus I also had a very ambivalent attitude towards the surprisingly strong wind on site. That shooting situation was simply nerve-racking, but of course a stroke of luck for the image and effect. It was all pretty risky, there was a maximum of two takes and a footage ratio of almost 1:1, because some images didn’t make it into the shoot after all. I am infinitely grateful to the entire team and production for supporting it like this.

SM: The ending of the film is quite different from your previous films. What was the core thought or vision behind this ending?

NS: I am not sure which ending you mean specifically. If you mean everything in the house after the close-up of the father: at some point during development I recognized that due to the fact that this was not supposed to be a mid-length film this time, I had the chance to shed my fundamental attitude of ‘nothing unnecessary’. At first I felt that was a bit of a betrayal, but I also simply felt like expanding or adding some things – like the last scene, for example. Or everything from the taking down of the windbreak, no, from the dream: there I simply found a break and subsequently a second, completely different and exciting image, in order to offer the viewer something of their own to add once more in the contrast between them.