l Holding its own amid the multi-million dollar star vehicles on display in Venice, Heiner Stadler's feature-film debut shows just what can be achieved with limited finance.
With a budget of just US$1.1 million, Warshots was produced, without any state subsidy, by Stadler's own production company HSF, backed by television (BR, WDR, SDR, arte), his own capital and, as Stadler puts it, the good will of actors and crew members.
Warshots gives an intense and fearful insight into the state of mind of a war photographer. Set in an imaginary place, the story centres around disillusioned war photographer Jan Loy (Herbert Knaup). In contrast to the similar character of Nick Nolte in Roger Spottiswoode's Under Fire, where the protagonist must take sides, the photographer in Warshots is simply unable to carry on experiencing a reduced vision of life as seen through his square viewfinder. He is not interested in taking sides, but afraid of losing his perspective on real life and decides to destroy all his films so he can rejoin the land of the living.
Stadler started making documentaries in 1971 while at film school in Munich, and many of his documentary skills blossom in Warshots, a clinical dissection of the horrors of war, which is almost dispassionate in its clarity. Shooting took place in Somalia during February 1994 and in Ireland and Lebanon from May to July 1995.
Stadler says the focus of the film held fast through several drafts: The description of the unique reception of image and reality by a photographer. This motif derives from Stadler's own experiences as a cameraman in war territories. It's only in retrospect that you start thinking about your own role in such absurd situations. Maybe there is no other way to work as a war correspondent. The question: What am I doing here? makes no sense.
Silke Schütze
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