Théo Deliyannis:
In France there is almost no informations about Jesus Der Film. To begin with, it would be interesting to contextualize the making of this film. Could you say a few words about the german underground film world of the 80's, which is quite unknown from the french audience? Was there much relations between filmmakers of east and west germany at that time?

Michael Brynntrup:
The 80ies at that time were even called Super-80ies because there was such a big movement of young artists who discovered the Super-8 as their medium. Not only visual artists, but also musicians and performers, and even more there was a political movement dealing with the medium as their own, independent channel to document their battles for house squatting or against Atomkraft (nuclear power). This Super-80ies wave was international: the same phenomenon happened in other metropoles, not only Berlin, but also London, Paris, New York. Already in the mid 80ies these international groups were connected thru Super-8 film festivals and touring programs (the new word for this is maybe 'networking'). Even in the socialist East-Berlin you could find some people working with Super-8, but of course under quite different conditions (e.g. there was no Super-8 sound film). The Super-8 there was considered as amateur film (like in the western countries), but in the East with the positive effect that the state censorship had no eyes on it. - When I came to the island West-Berlin I was very much interested about the strange situation of a divided city, and I travelled a lot to East-Berlin, and made friends there. So I also got connected to some Super-8 filmmakers there and invited them to take part in the Jesusfilm.

TD:
And now about the film itself : Could you tell us something about the genesis of this film, how this idea came to you and how you decided to make it as a collective film?

MB:
During the 80ies with it's postmodernism not only the authorities were mistrusted, but also the authorship. When I came to Berlin in 1982 I worked together with friends in a film collective, the so-called Oyko-group. In this group we tried different concepts of collective films. My interest was to create a film which is a work of many filmmakers (with all their individual and sometimes diverse ideas) and at the same time a narrative one-story full length film. My catholic background of course leaded me to the Jesus Story, the Greatest Story ever told (like another film about Jesus was entitled). Special in this case was of course that the biblical story was told in episodes, a perfect construct for a collective project. Well, when I started to ask for contributors I was surprised and even overwhelmed by the positve resonance of all these young and basically 'secular' artists. I guess with this idea something came together: the protest against authorities and the deep desire for freedom of creativity. The feeling at that time was: 'Anything goes'.

TD:
How did you succeded in hiring such a big amount of filmmakers? I can imagine that there were some arguments between some of them, knowing how the underground movie world is...

MB:
I knew the big world of the small Super-8 quite well by visiting many festivals and in Berlin you knew each other anyway. Actually I didn't ask so many filmmakers, I only asked some 'special' friends: the guys with the same spirit and humour, and appreciating the trash-factor of the Super-8. I even asked some non-filmmakers like a film critic or a book editor, both because I felt their special interests in underground art and filmmaking. I think it was quite important for the success of the production that one single person was keeping the whole project together. And all the different filmmakers accepted this as a need to bring the film to a real finish. So there were not so many discussions among the filmmakers, specially because the surreal concept of 'ecriture automatique' was an integral part of the project: nobody knew and shouldn't know about the other episodes, but the links between these episodes were organised by me who arranged some actors to play in more than one episode, or gave some advises for connecting locations, etc.

TD:
Could you speak briefly, about the shooting itself? How many days of shooting, with what budget, etc. (the technical side of the film).

MB:
The shooting happened all over Germany: Cologne, Hamburg, Munich, more cities and mostly in Berlin (East and West). The first takes were done in winter 1984 and the last takes more-or-less two weeks before the premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February 1986. In 2014 a book about the project was published and in it we've printed my project diary: as you can read in there I spent almost every second day during the 15 months with preparing / shooting / finishing the film. There was no budget for the film; I smuggled the cheap Super-8 cassettes from East-Berlin to give them to the filmmakers; many roles of Super-8 were hand developed in my kitchen. At the end of the project I was a very poor filmmaker, you can say. When the film was invited to the Berlin Film Festival a federal funding institution gave some money for a print (about 2.400 EUR), and with this print I could do a film tour thru 40 cities in (West-)Germany in 1986. After the tour I was not rich, but at least I had no depts anymore.

TD:
How was the film receveid when it was screened? I saw somewhere that it was shown at a religious film festival - and now it will be shown in a parisian church : what usually are the reactions of christians?

MB:
After the premiere and during this extended film tour all kinds of reactions came across: a catholic magazine titled an article about the film as "Made by the devil" (Teuflisches Machwerk), other magazines celebrated the film very positively as "revolutionary". You can say that the film was discussed very controversially. There are no uniform reactions from a religious audience - Christians these days have learned their lessons from the discussions about religious satire relating to the Islam and the terror of the Islamic State: it seems that nowerdays in our western, individualized culture the freedom of speach owns a bigger value than religious faith and feelings.

TD:
And finally about you : The french audience may not be familiar with your work, as it's not often shown here. Could you tell us something about your work in general (your main concerns, your way of working film & video, etc.), and how Jesus Der Film fits into your filmography?

MB:
I do quite different films: each film has to be very different from the other, the older ones. But in retrospective I see that I was -at certain periods- interested in special topics: my first films deal with the German and/or my familiar heritage, e.g. I made a film about the Berlin Wall. Maybe the Jesusfilm belongs into this context too. For a certain time I made quite a few films about gay issues, e.g. the HIV-crisis, maybe starting 1989 with a cyclus of the so-called Death Dances (danses macabres), and also films with funny gay content. At the beginning of this millenium and for more than 10 years I travelled a lot in Asia and made many films and installations linked to life and culture there. I'm always interested in new technologic developments (e.g. I realized some 'interactive' films on the internet). In general I would say my films are very personal because they are clearly made by an identified human being, and all films try to reach and transgress limitations, both experimental-technically and mental-psychically. I guess 'freedom' is my most beloved word for what I'm doing.

(Théo Deliyannis, Interview on »JESUS - THE FILM« on 11.07.2016, translated and printed in:
Catalogue Festival des Cinémas Différents et Expérimentaux de Paris, October 2016)