Ar Cinema Without Borders (thanks to our friend, Shahriar Shafiei Najafabadi, a great Iranian/Austrian composer), we had the opportunity of interviewing the internationally known Austrian filmmaker, the great Marvin Kren on camera.
Marvin also told us: I have a funny story. I always was fascinated by the life of crooks and criminals. Since I was a little boy. I was fascinated by them. There are people who do forbidden things, which does not mean that I’m glorifying them, it’s just a matter of fascination. My father, who was a very honorable man, a businessman, always made fun of me about this approach.
Vienna is not a city of gangsters, and actually it is a very peaceful city. But even the peaceful cities have their dark corners, and even Vienna does. And that’s why I guess it is such an interesting city. This dark side of Vienna is in contrast its as a city of history and art. But Berlin is more or less the Los Angeles of our territory, and everything happens there. Berlin is the biggest city in the German speaking area. It has a very fast pace life and it’s dirty, but it’s a city which changes every year, which is a creature of its own.
I grew up surrounded by artists and my father, who owned restaurants. So, when I was little, I always stayed up late at night. I was a small boy sitting among artists who were drinking and talking. I was a child of the night. I was always fascinated with these night creatures. You know, people are different at night. And that I learned about what is good or bad in my early childhood, and therefore nothing dangerous happened to me. But I was influenced by those night people, not a lot of kids of my age had that experience.
In my movies I deal with the forbidden world of criminals. I’m not a participant of this forbidden world, but I am interested in it, I’m fascinated by their life stories. There’s always a danger in fascination, and I’m aware of it. Those people are surrounded by negative energy, and it is very sad to live such a life.
Among the work I have done, Crooks definitely has the most commercial approach, because it is for Netflix and It was a very expensive series to make. The idea of crooks is to entertain, to move people.
I try to watch at least a series or a film each day. This is like training or my workout. And I do watch them sometimes without sound, just to see the rhythm of everything. I write down a list of movies I need to watch.
As far as casting in my films, I always pick my actors myself. They have to be my choice, not the producers choice. I really need to know them from the bottom of my heart. I need to understand what kind of human being they are and how I can trust them. How can I reach them? And how can they trust me?
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Vienna born and raised Marvin kick- started his directing career in 2010 with his debut „Rammbock“ the highly acclaimed zombie movie which regularly features in the top ten of all zombie movies of all time.
As the film title suggests, Marvin’s second feature-film “Blutgletscher“ (Blood Glacier) also could not exactly be billed as rom-com. By now Marvin’s reputation as the go- to director for gore had reached the TV world and Marvin was invited to direct three episodes of Germany’s cult TV crime show “Tatort” before going on to direct the stunning“Mordkommision Berlin 1″ about a crime case in Berlin in the roaring 1920s.
Berlin remained the location for his next series “4 Blocks” but a century later with plot revolving around the troubled leader of a criminal gang navigating the multi-cultural underworld.
With also couple of Grimme and Deutsche TV awards under his belt and having proved that he is a master of crime, suspense and thrillers Marvin turned his hand at comedy as author and director of “Der Weisse Kobold” which was shot in 2021 and is hitting the screens in 2022.
Marvin is a proven master of suspense. With this latest film we’re looking forward to smiling instead of getting goose bumps and are intrigued to see which genre he masters next.