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Yvonne Catterfeld named to play Romy Schneider in German biopic

Yvonne Catterfeld is to play the legendary Austrian-born icon Romy Schneider in Josef Rusnak’s biopic Eine Frau Wie Romy (literally A Woman Like Romy) which will begin shooting at locations in France and Germany from July 23.

According to German press reports, actresses such as Jodie Foster and Eva Green had been interested in the role. However, director Rusnak pointed out that the project’s French partners had always stressed that the pivotal role be cast with a German actress even though she lived much of her life in France.

For singer-actress Catterfeld this is a role of a lifetime. She first came to wider public attention in a German daily soap and appeared in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s family film Lily The Witch which was shot at the Babelsberg studios last summer.

Rusnak, whose past credits include The 13th Floor (1999), Victims (2004) and It’s Alive (2007), explained that he does "not intend to make a copy of Romy. It will be a story which can only be an approach toward the phenomenon that was Romy.”

Producers Douglas Welbat and Raymond Danon, who worked with Schneider on eight films before her death at 43 in 1982, revealed that it had taken 3½
years of preparations before being able to find the actress in the role of Romy . Other casting of roles with actors from France and Germany will be made known in the following months.

“There couldn’t be a better subject for a collaboration between Germany and France,” said Welbat who has written the screenplay. “We cast throughout half of Europe before we decided on Yvonne,” while Danon added that Catterfeld is “perfect for the part.”

The Euros 23m German-French co-production between Hamburg-based movieCompany and France’s Bankable Films is set to be released by Warner Bros in Germany in autumn 2009.

I'm insanely pleased that the woman in my avatar is going to play Romy Schneider. Hard to find anybody who resembles Romy more.

There's some doubt in the press if an inexperienced soap and TV actress with almost no credits can manage the role, but many found her casting video quite convincing. You can see it here.

Obviously that's a make or break role which can only result in a triumph or flop since there's no other actor or actress in France or Germany who is more revered than Romy Schneider.

I suggest a Flop! (because of the cast & the production crew and ultimatly because of Romy Schneiders charcter)

However, why do i post on a thread related to some super untalented tv actress? Insane… You must be in some kind of relationship with the girl behind your avatar!? Ernst Lubitch and "Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten"…boy…thats a montage!

Edit: By the way - people are extremly scared about who will play Delon (with such a production staff in the back)…but i am sure the will find someone in the gutter of german televison…

accatone wrote:However, why do i post on a thread related to some super untalented tv actress? Insane…

You should cross-post this in the "Rediculous" thread #-o

Ok - i am gonna try to add something "more" to this topic. First of all i am not interested in the movie itself but about the reception of Romy Schneider in Germany in general. All of you probably know that she became famous (at least in Germany) for playing Sissi - a good example of a '50s "Papas Kino" movie - and so almost everybody in that time (with its conservative political climate) fell in love with that innocent little girl. Her move to France, the films she made and over all her liaison with Delon caused significant reactions in the then super conservative Germany. Delon became some kind of pimp who infiltrated "our Sissi" with all the bad things man can do to such an innocent girl. (i witnessed more than once conversations about that with my parents generation - and believe me, it went over bord most of the time).

However, maybe this bio-pic turns out to be a masterpiece - but with a cast like that (and this particular production staff) i have the strange feeling that it will play in my parents hands... Unfortunatly my mother loved the idea of that soap "actress" playing Siss...errr...Romy Schneider. On the other hand a good friend of mine who fell in love with Romy after watching her "french" films almost threw out after reading about this cast. We both agree that this actress is as fascinating as a plastic bag of (blonde) sandwich in your local super market...and you know what, only yesterday i met a girl in a bar that looked like Nathalie Woods - i thought about many things but not that this superficial fact would make her the perfect cast for a Woods bio-pic. With a character as ambivalent as Romy Schneider was i think a project like I'M NOT THERE would be way more interesting and do more justice than a second rate bio-pic which i expect this film will turn out.

But still most interesting - who is playing Delon? Andreas Elzholz?

Nothing could illustrate the partly narrow-minded reactions in Germany better than your posts. If it would be up to you, no film would have ever been casted because for their first film the actors aren't experienced enough or haven't done anything worthwile yet.
Garbo started in some advertisement films and Sibel Kekili began in pornos. It simply doesn't say anything about the abilities of the actress. You could have commented on her test video, but no it's simple prejudice.

Geschenkt!

If you call me narrow minded upon this cast ... boy ... you might be a student in Mainz ... but come on, some doubt is eligible! If you put my doubts on a general level (narrow minded reactions in Germany) you are really gettin out of bounds... its prejudice - yeah!

Where is your argument for that chick? Its prejudice on a big level! No word on the actual character ... nothing!

I feel very bad for the university of Mainz to have someone that narrow minded and un - reflexive about german cinema history ... i could care less ... just keep on studying ... i am out of this ...

Aalaf!

I disagree. I think this biopic will be a hit. In my Vienna vacation, all the bookstores were full with Romy books. She's an icon in Austia, and she's still popular in half Europe.

Her acting in L'important c'est d'aimer is one of the best I've seen. It's normal that Almodóvar dedicated Todo sobre mi madre to Schneider.

See the beginning, see her fragility, her gaze, the beauty and her strong performance here

While I personally can stand neither Romy, nor the girl in the pic, I agree with rohmerin that there is quite a chance for the film to be big. She still is very popular (mostly it seems because of Sissi, not because of her later films), which will fare well with most of the "older" generation and young girls will probably go see it because of that GZSZ chick.

And well, Kekili or Shu Qi may have started in porn, but how many who start there make it big (be it in mainstream or art films)? Also in porn, you are somewhat unknown to the large public, however starring in bad TV-shows and singing idiotic kiddie-songs makes you somewhat famous and thus leaves an image.

After my frozen new holidays in Provence, I saw that Romy is still highly popular in France. I've seen this week for 1st time Le trio infernal, and Le vieux fusil, and she was a great, great actress. I expect this biopic will be good enough to make her even more popular.

Unfortunately, the film could become the victim of the current credit crunch: Romy Schneider biopic in doubt.

lubitschs avatar is gone…great!
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,ra6m1/leben ... 2019/text/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

accatone wrote:lubitschs avatar is gone…great!
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,ra6m1/leben ... 2019/text/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

She isn't gone, she has backed out voluntarily from an apparently badly managed project. What exactly is so great about the downfall of a big budget production which would have created work for German actors and technicians and might (or might not) have been critically and commercially successful? And even if this had not been the case, it's good for the local industry to be able to manage some biggies to sustain acertain level of professionalism and at least Yvonne Catterfeld would have been uniquely qualified to play the role as every participant in the project was eager to have her as star and as the small casting video hinted at.

i was just kidding bud, relax!

At least that "Süddeutsche" article mentions that by the end of the year there will be a TV-biopic on Schneider starring Jessica Schwarz, so all you Romy fans out there might still have something to rejoice.

Seriously though, and regardless of who plays the title role, a biopic on Schneider doesn't seem to be a bad idea to me, especially as German audiences still seem to identify her with the "Sissy" films more or less exclusively. This means not only the neglect of her French films, but also of the later films when she was still in Germany, which at least manage to illustrate what a good actress she actually was at that time already. Okay, something like "Scampolo" is altogether forgettable, but her role in the remake of "Mädchen in Uniform" is quite good (though the film comes nowhere near the Sagan original), and also Käutner's "Monpti", while slight, is well worth seeing nevertheless.

For me its crystal clear - Jessica Schwarz is the late Romy wheras the other girl is "The Sissy".
But i will stop now - i never ever was interested in actors (models) nor was i in a particular Fan Club -
so whatever we will see in the end - i care less. I don't even have access to televison so i will probably
not even be able to see the hella sexy Schwarz performing as the late Romy…which is kinda sad.