A Heavy Heart (2016)

Interesting facts

A Heavy Heart is a 2015 German drama film directed by Thomas Stuber. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Production

Herbert was produced by Departures Film and made in co-production with deutschfilm, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, ARTE and Hessischer Rundfunk. The film was supported by Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Deutscher Filmförderfonds, Beauftragte für Kultur und Medien, Kuratorium junger deutscher Film and Filmförderungsanstalt.

Herbert is the first feature-length film by Thomas Stuber. The film represents Stuber's second collaboration with Departures Film, following the short film Von Hunden und Pferden. As in Stuber's previous works Von Hunden und Pferden and Teenage Angst, Peter Matjasko was responsible for the camera. Stuber wrote the screenplay together with Leipzig-based author Clemens Meyer, who already wrote the original short story of Von Hunden und Pferden.

The film was shot in Leipzig and Halle in 35 days in the spring of 2014. Actor Peter Kurth worked up 16 kilograms of muscle mass for the role and starved it off during filming to portray Herbert's decline. The film was therefore filmed in chronological order. Kurth's acting starts out strongly physical and becomes more and more restricted until it is almost limited to the face.

Director Thomas Stuber sees the film as a reverse boxing film. In the classic American boxing film, he says, there is a young guy from nowhere who works hard, fights his way to triumph, and wins recognition and happiness. Herbert, on the other hand, is a film about the decline of a once great boxer.

Wild Bunch/Senator Film released Herbert in German theaters nationwide in spring 2016. Picture Tree International was handling worldwide distribution.

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