Interview: Director Ralf Schmerberg Wants to Solve the ‘Problema’

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CHICAGO – Back in 2006, an unprecedented film project took place in Berlin, Germany, in the infamous Bebelplatz, a plaza that once hosted Nazi book burnings. The idea was to get 112 diverse individuals together to answer 100 questions. Their answers were processed by Ralf Schmerberg, the director of the resultant film, “Problema.”

The film has finally seen the light of day this year, distilled from thousands of hours of Q&A footage. The co-moderator of the event was actor Willem Dafoe, who shared the duties of asking the questions with Hafsat Abiola, as a camera at each of the 112 stations recorded the answers. The German plaza in Berlin, once the center of heinous fascist activities, became a specially constructed roundtable of philosophical thought and pragmatic advice.

Ralf Schmerberg (center) takes a well-deserved bow with moderators Hafsat Abiola (left) and Willem Dafoe in The Bebelplatz, Berlin, in ‘Problema’ Photo credit: © Mindpirates, Problema-thefilm.org

Questions ranged from “What is today’s most important unreported story?” to “What is God’s religion?,” and a range of subjects in between. These questions were answered by the famous (Bianca Jagger), the scholarly (Cornel West) and the general thinker (Susan George, Political Scientist).

The film was released online December 6th and can be view for free here, and information on the background of the project is also available. HollywoodChicago.com interviewed the director of the film, Ralf Schmerberg, when he was attending the Chicago International Film Festival in October, representing the film.

HollywoodChicago.com: First and foremost, how did gathering the wisdom of the world change your life and point-of-view?

Ralf Schmerberg: A lot, a lot, a lot. It made me more humble and a better listener, and less a talker. It made me more thoughtful and made me understand that there are immense meanings behind language and words. We speak mostly unconsciously when we talk, especially in private. I was surrounded by such a nice ocean of wisdom, I hope some of it stuck in my mind. [laughs]

I listened to all 900 hours of the material, pretty much for two years straight. It reaches you in areas you really can’t control like heart, soul and mind. It f**ks with you in a great way and you don’t realize it changes something quietly in you.

HollywoodChicago.com: Without naming any names, was there anyone on the roundtable panel who didn’t seem to get what was going on, and was tentative about answering the questions?

Schmerberg: Absolutely. It’s a human situation, especially when you’re answering the questions in public, to a camera that is connected to the web, which you can’t fully measure like, for example, an interview camera. With the technology aspect, and seating people to the left and right of each other, I think everyone had their own issues. Some people had problems with concentration.

We had a great reception the night before, it was a magic night. We researched who would do this for two years, and we had all their photos up, some I had met before and some I didn’t know. But suddenly I had come from the roundtable set finishing up some last details, so I was super-stressed, running into the reception and seeing the whole cast alive, like a children’s book come to life. I made a speech that essentially said that we didn’t know what we were doing or what was going to happen, we hoped that they all trusted us. And the first thing I wanted them to know, they didn’t have to answer if they didn’t want to.

One of the cast members only answered a third of the questions, and for the others he just relaxed, observing everything. He enjoyed it.

HollywoodChicago.com: You included a lot of casual stuff in the film like cast facial expressions, people running around backstage and pauses in the action. What was your reasoning for doing this in the final film, in lieu of perhaps squeezing in another question or two?

Schmerberg: Based on 900 hours of good material, and to cut a movie out of it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to bring all the questions into the film. Not all questions, not all answers. I’m happy it all exists on the web so people can look at it singularly. The whole thing for me was not to overdo it, not to make this too much of an educational lectures. The feeling was you sit in the middle of the table, that was the function behind the editing, it comes all to you.

For me, it was important to show the vulnerability, the simplicity and the stupidity of the people also, so that you as a viewer feel like it’s a person like me.

Filmmaker Wim Wenders, participant in ‘Problema’ Photo credit: © Mindpirates, Problema-thefilm.org

HollywoodChicago.com: The footage that you used to illustrate the questions was all over the board, including historical, nature and even silent film examples. What was the brainstorming process for deciding on the footage and how did you go about gathering it?

Schmerberg: This experience was like going to university. After I was done, I had learned so much. As a filmmaker, it was too limited just to go with the voices by themselves. And even though some of the filmed material was my own, it was perfect to create the edit rather than control it as a filmmaker with my own material. That was the magic decision, and the research of the material was the biggest production part of the process.

We created a huge Final Cut [computer editing program] server where we kept feeding it with news service film archives, a huge database of photos, art and artist renderings. In a way we wanted to create a server that had all the social consciousness material from humanity in it.

I would direct my production team to create 10 minute palettes on a particular subject and I would play with color and form, it was exciting. In the end, we gathered over 100,000 hours of film footage and millions of pictures. Now we are trying to make the server accessible to other filmmakers because it’s such a well put together archive.

HollywoodChicago.com: You decided to set the film in the same plaza where books were burned by the Nazis. Since you are German, does the situation with the World War II still permeate the culture, even though three generations have passed? Were you trying to create a healing process with your location?

Schmerberg: Yes, absolutely. Not so much consciously, but subconsciously. When you creatively approach something you don’t know why you do it sometimes. I find much more out, the symbolism I ultimately tap into, as I coldly calculate the elements together.

The project began in the U.S., we wanted to do it in a forest in Woodstock, New York. It was an anger reaction to Bush administrations policies and what was going on with the Iraq War. We developed a lot there, but was not able to pull the table off in the original location. At the same time, we had offices in Berlin for Dropping Knowledge [the name of the project], and I walked in and said we have to it now, with German efficiency and organization. [laughs] We’ll do this one in Germany.

We wanted to do it in Bebelplatz, this was clear from the beginning. I don’t know why. And for sure it was a healing process, and for sure we need to heal. In a way, use our history, and expand the learning of this history into the world. This was what this project was about.

It will take a couple more generations to get to a Germany that is free of that particular part of our ancestry. We avoided it for a long time as artists, we wouldn’t make films about it, we would not use the Nazi symbolism or materials of the time, to work it out for ourselves. We’ve got to free ourselves of this guilty feeling, but I’m personally over it, I’ve traveled enough. I don’t feel German, I feel more international. But my grandfather was a massive Nazi, as most of our grandfathers were.

Bianca Jagger in ‘Problema’ Photo credit: © Mindpirates, Problema-thefilm.org

HollywoodChicago.com: One person who had seen this film said to me that it made them feel stupid. Why do you think people don’t trust their own reasoning, is it because the Socratic Q&A method is not so much practiced in education?

Schmerberg: It’s a big problem, we do not embrace the notion that we have our own thoughts. We are programmed to function in systems that are capitalistic and sexist driven. We are afraid to make mistakes or show our limited space. I’m sorry they felt stupid watching the film, they should not feel that way. The film itself reaches out to many personal ideas, and I urge everyone ‘to take their seat at the table.’ You can go to Dropping Knowledge and give your own answers to the questions. Thousands and thousands of answers besides the ones we got at the table.

That’s why we did Dropping Knowledge, we as the makers don’t feel we can tell anybody anything. We had no answers. We realized we had to re-learn questioning from point zero. First the question, then the mind opens up. Don’t make it so important that you afraid to have a voice, have meaning, have a position, an idea or solution. Even our anonymous answers have quality.

HollywoodChicago.com: The internet is a new form of mass media. How do you think mass media in general have placed viewpoints and ideas into society, both positive and negative?

Schmerberg: One of reasons I did the project is that I felt that information had become streamlined to the point of narrowing the point of view. The media is not well informed, not diversely informed and not openly informed. The internet has opened up the forum of exchanging news and views, breaking the old model of ‘I write what I know, you have to read and believe it.’ There is a diverse world happening again, and I really like it. It is quite an interesting time.

HollywoodChicago.com: How many questions were originally submitted and what was the process to weeding them down to the final 100?

Schmerberg: Through internet campaigning, we received about a half million questions. We had a nice team of question editors who read them daily as they came in. Another team edited the next process, to get the 500,000 to the 5000 to the 500, and in the end the final 100 was a nice bouquet of questions that mean something to us in the 21st century. We made sure we had a diversity of countries represented in the questions, we liked the mix.

HollywoodChicago.com: Is the pen, or in your case the film, mightier than the sword today?

Schmerberg: For me, it is the camera, for me it is film. For someone else it could be the pen. The pen and film go together, so many pens become films. We need all sources, I don’t want to call it a ‘weapon,’ but there is not a better one. When it comes to fighting something, the more words the better, so we need all of this.

HollywoodChicago.com: I looked at the 17 questions in the film and decided to ask you one: ‘What does courage mean now?’

Schmerberg: To me, it’s such a diverse and strong word, and there are so many aspects to it. It’s as strong as the word ‘love.’ In the now it can immediately change its meaning in the next moment to be courageous. For courage now, I want to embrace the smaller things, millions and millions of tiny happenings, when it’s a meadow of courage instead of one tree.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com