In the space of a year Filmakademie-graduate Dominik Hartl has finished his first two feature-length films, moving from the
light-hearted coming-of-age to the gloomy zombie territory. In Attack of the Lederhosenzombies alpine ski chalet madness and a fancy snowboard photo-shooting mutate into a bone-chilling showdown on the ski slopes. Its
world premiere is scheduled at the Brussels Fantastic Film Festival.
You have released your first two feature films within just two years: after the light-hearted coming-of-age story Beautiful Girl, now you have ventured deep into horror territory. Has the main point for you, with these first works, been to experiment
and try out a variety of genres?
DOMINIK HARTL: Actually, I was commissioned to direct Beautiful Girl by Allegro Film. But I wouldn't have done it if I weren't a big fan of coming-of-age themes. Genre film has always been a
passion of mine. I'd like to work in that sector, but it's also important for me to try out a variety of things.
The horror/zombie genre isn't very well represented in Austria, and when such films are made they frequently draw inspiration
from the Austrian mountains and Alpine landscapes. Why are such factors so popular in these films?
DOMINIK HARTL: With Attack of the Lederhosenzombies our intention was to make a film that could only be Austrian in terms of the locations. That's why the Alpine background
appealed to us. I think it's also a matter of unique selling points. A film that tries to pretend it could just as easily
be set in the USA can very quickly become embarrassing. We wanted to give the setting something very specific, to achieve
this blend with a niche genre we tend to associate with American settings but in a landscape that could only be found here.
Which elements and themes formed the basis for you to develop the "horror scenario" – in the literal sense of the expression?
What form did the collaboration take between you and Armin Prediger when you were working on the screenplay?
DOMINIK HARTL: That was actually a complicated and long drawn-out process, even though the story now appears relatively simple. We started
with the premise that snowboarders and zombies should both feature in the film, but for that to happen we first had to find
a story and the appropriate characters. Experience indicates that as soon as you take something away from one side of a narrative
structure, the other side also starts to topple. Consequently it was difficult to get the point. On top of all that, we constantly
had to adapt to production conditions. And the story was very much influenced by the physical location: sometimes we had to
drop narrative strands, or we realized that a certain place simply didn't exist the way we had imagined it.
Armin Prediger is Irish. At a very early stage the world sales organization was involved, East West Filmdistribution, and
they wanted the film to be shot in English, so they brought Armin on board. He writes a lot of children's series for British
TV, he's very genre savvy, and his German is perfect, just like his English. So it made sense in many ways to write the screenplay
together with him, and we did a lot of that work in three sessions up in the mountains.
It would be quite unusual for a director to have a large budget available for his second feature film. Sometimes filmmakers
compensate for a low-budget by making conscious decisions to introduce a trashy aspect, for example. That doesn't seem to
have been your intention here: on the contrary, the film contains helicopter shots and snowboard stunts. How did you manage
to strike a balance between budget restrictions and ambitious visuals?
DOMINIK HARTL: The few months before we started filming must have been the most exhausting period of my life. So much had to be finalized,
and of course it often emerged during this phase that something simply wasn't possible. There were lots of meetings with heads
of departments, people like Tissi Brandhofer who was in charge of SFX, and he’d say: "And how do you imagine that's going
to work?" In many cases it came down to finding very creative solutions. For example, the ski-doo accident ended up only taking
place on a map. That solution took months of hard work, because the accident in the valley was indispensable for the story,
but we couldn't use up €60,000 and two days’ filming to get the effect. It really was a matter of striking a balance,
and we didn't have any leeway at all. The interesting thing was that as soon as we got up into the mountains things were just
fine, because everyone in the team threw themselves into the work with such enthusiasm. And then we somehow got through it,
with a lot of luck. Filming was a very positive experience for everybody involved. And on top of all that, we were really
fortunate with the weather.
Where did the filming take place?
DOMINIK HARTL: We filmed at the Jaufen Pass in South Tyrol, at an altitude of about 2300 meters. It’s very exposed terrain, because
it's above the tree line, and it was very cold and windy. We shot the film in six weeks, and for four weeks we were filming
outside at night. Almost every night there was a snowstorm, sometimes so bad that the actors couldn't open their eyes, or
we couldn't open the flaps on the camera. We filmed whatever the conditions, because we simply didn't have any choice. And
we pulled it off with the great deal of good luck. For a long time we were really worried that we’d have too much snow,
and that's how it was. And then two days before the end of filming it was suddenly spring, and the team had to shovel snow
up onto the roof of the cabin to preserve the continuity. We were filming towards the end of the season, in March and April,
just about the last days of winter, and after that it would have been impossible. The biggest challenge for the location scouts
was to find a place that looked remote, had guaranteed snow and at the same time was accessible 365 days a year by truck,
right up to the front door. The Jaufen Pass was a suitable location, but still we had to make a lot of fine adjustments to
the screenplay.
Attack of the Lederhosenzombies is labelled a horror comedy. It's a farce with underlying themes that are quite serious, relating to greed, exploitation of
their environment and the dubious chalet mentality in ski resorts.
DOMINIK HARTL: I'm from Schladming, and I more or less grew up with ski chalet madness. That's how the story originated. It's always been
important for me to have a critical stance towards ski tourism, but I wanted that to remain in the background. In my view,
too much of it wouldn't have worked in the context of this genre. Zombie films always represent something that’s happening
in society at the moment, but on a more subliminal level"
That's why we chose the Alpine setting but didn't make any more reference to it. That was also connected with the remote location,
which would have been less appropriate for comments about the ruthless commercialization of the countryside than a place like
Kitzbühel, for example. As well as that, the number of extras we had available also restricted any comment about chalet madness.
A few hundred people getting drunk in a gigantic disco could have made the point, but that simply wasn't part of the story.
What led to the decision to cast actors who aren’t Austrian for the young protagonists?
DOMINIK HARTL: Since we are operating within a niche genre, very clear conditions with regard to sales and distribution were established
by the producers. The market for this genre is fairly large, predominantly in the DVD and VOD sectors. These audiences aren’t
very interested in reading subtitles; they’d much rather have something filmed in English. From my perspective there
were two options: either everyone spoke English and acted as though they always did, or we took advantage of the fact that
snowboarders always travel from all round the world for shoots, and we constructed the dialogue around them, leaving the Austrians
to talk in their bad English and thus adding an element of lost in translation humour as well.
Would it be right to describe your ambitions in filmmaking at the moment as a desire to make "good entertainment for a younger
audience"?
DOMINIK HARTL: Yes, absolutely. The point for me is to make films I'd like to see in the cinema myself, which are fun and also intelligent,
I hope.
Interview: Karin Schiefer
March 2016
Translation: Charles Osborne
