Film “Ivo” in the cinema: Eva Trobisch: “You need a certain basic happiness”

Her feature film “Ivo” accompanies a palliative care nurse in her everyday life, in which she is also confronted with a request for assisted suicide. The film is not a statement for or against euthanasia. But should it contribute to a more open approach to death?

I would find it difficult if my impulse to make films had any agitating moment. I always make films out of a personal interest, and if it interests others too, I’m happy. You either don’t want to have anything to do with dying or you’re familiar with it, depending on how and where you are in life. A friend said: “Now my grandma has died, and it’s a good thing I saw the film before.”

I stumbled into this topic looking for a plot for the “police call” and for crimes that I found ambivalent. This is how I moved from the “Angel of Death” at the Charité to outpatient palliative care. During my research, I saw a lot that I didn’t know, and that is of course immediately an internal task for filmmakers. Then it quickly became clear that I would find it indecent to exploit this world for a crime plot; Rather, I wanted to portray this very special working world. Johann Campean, the father of my long-time friend and cameraman Adrian Campean, is a palliative care doctor in North Rhine-Westphalia – we accompanied the very specific network of Specialized Outpatient Palliative Care (SAPV) facilities he founded. I had no idea at all, no language and no way of dealing with this world. I sat awkwardly in the corner and didn’t know how to behave. I wanted to face that and address my own inability. Dealing with this world has not only taken away my (touch) fear of death. I was going through a personal crisis at the time, and these people, whose work ethic impressed me deeply, brought me back to life in an interesting way with their approach to death.

Some things in the film have a very documentary character, but they still tell a fictional story. Why didn’t you make a documentary out of it?

In addition, there was a love triangle in my environment that touched me: a woman who lived with a seriously ill person had a long-term love affair with a friend at the same time, and as a triangle they stabilized each other. But at the moment when the man died and the path could have been clear, that was no longer possible, and loyalty came through the back door. With this idea of ​​what different forms of loyalty and integrity can look like, I walked around in this world that I had researched into. Many colleagues said you had to choose between this Greek tragedy about the triangle and a work portrait, but I couldn’t do that. On average it was quite a balancing act, but now I’m a bit proud that I had the courage, because both worked.

It goes so far that sometimes you don’t even know anymore: Who is an actor and who is real? You filmed with real medical professionals, but the patients also seem very authentic.

Johann, who was a palliative care doctor himself and was my moral authority, also wanted to refer patients to me. If it had been a documentary film with the focus on the patients, that would have been conceivable. But since I had already decided to tell this fictional part, I thought it wouldn’t be possible to actually film people dying as a way of authenticating the world of work. Only those who do their job in front of the camera are original. Everything else is actors.

What was the interest of the palliative care nurses in taking part in this film?

Added to the personal connection was the feeling that their profession was underrepresented. Some employees were skeptical at first until they realized how thoroughly we, especially the main actress Minna Wündrich, had screwed ourselves into it, which inspired trust. We’ve talked a lot about how specific her character is because she does things that could also discredit the profession with her affair with a relative and her drug abuse.

All the employees came to the film premiere, one said: “It’s good that people see what I do every day.” She felt seen; Otherwise the job will be in a dark corner that you don’t necessarily want to look into.

Society puts a lot on these people. If the assisted suicide, which in the history of film was with a personöa similar amalgamation is really allowed?

The regulation has since been lifted again, but when we were filming it was just allowed, and the SAPV even had the question: Do we include assisted suicide in our portfolio? There were extremely different attitudes within their team.

Can we also derive a plea for better working conditions from the film? It shows the strain on the permanently mobile nursing staff, and the main character seems pretty alone.

That’s funny, something like that is often said about my characters, even though I don’t design them that way. Viewers see a gravity in this that the SAPV doesn’t see in it at all; Those involved find themselves well portrayed, but not in the sense of being pitiable, and perceive “Ivo” as a fairly good-humoured film. They are cheerful Rhinelanders themselves; You also need a certain stability and basic happiness for this job. It happens that Johann stands at the barbecue and says: “I’ll just write out a death certificate.” Of course, it’s not a particularly family-friendly job. The group we worked with is also quite progressive; there are certainly other SAPVs in Germany that work more precariously.

Drug abuse like in the fictional story is actually common among people who have a lot to do with so-called mood enhancers, but not in our SAPV – that was my narrative freedom and came from other research.

The doctor plays along and was also your advisor. The cameraman intervened when the shoot became too much of a film of concern. Does this mixing of roles in the team resonate with the ideal of non-hierarchical filmmaking?

Absolutely. I really enjoyed filming with this small, hand-picked team of friends, in which I was often an intern on their own set. The film was financed on a low budget, but very quickly, for the “Small Television Play,” and I felt that was a more coherent approach to approaching this topic instead of coming in with a 50-person team and running everything through. It was a collective, democratic work. Adrian co-directed. Editor Laura Lauzemis co-wrote the film, and Johann and the three main actors played a key role in shaping their characters.

How closely did you stick to the script and how much was improvised?

We started based on a treatment, and after a rehearsal with the actors, a script was created. We followed this, only the order and arrangement changed significantly on average. But there was also improvisation. For example, real corpse movers came to the set, so we dropped in without any prior rehearsal and just watched how they did their job without knowing how it worked.

Just like thatöexperience rige for the first time.

Exactly. Minna was really unnerved by the pragmatism of this process; she didn’t have to play at all.

»Ivo«, Germany 2024. Director and script: Eva Trobisch. With: Minna Wündrich, Pia Hierzegger, Lukas Turtur, Johann Campean. 105 min. Cinema release: June 20th.