Klaas Diersmann Gives Gangsters A Twist

This year’s ADCAN awards received not only record entries, but incredible talent to boot. The overall winner of the night, winning in both his category and the coveted audience vote, was the talented Klaas Diersmann. The initiative, which partners unsigned filmmakers with charities and rewards both the finalists and winners by giving them a foot on the industry ladder, is in its third year of launching budding directors’ careers. 

Diersmann decided to take on the brief for CALM, a charity aimed at tackling depression and suicide among men, which is shockingly the number one killer of British men under 45. His spot remains both on topic and watchable, choosing a mock gangster setting for a more light-hearted approach to such a tough subject. 

After seeing the spot at the awards night we couldn’t help agreeing with the audience and decided to catch up with the director to find out more about what this win means for him. 

Congratulations on your ADCAN wins! How did you first hear about the competition?

It was a friend who works in advertising who forwarded me an email newsletter that talked about the ADCAN competition. I've then had the four briefs in the back of my mind for about a month until I decided to enter. 

Why did you decide to compete?  

There are a lot of film competitions out there but ADCAN really appealed to me as they had challenging briefs and most importantly they support great charities which makes it really worthwhile to put collective effort and time into. It was a real opportunity to create something good that can help to make a difference. 

Can you tell us a bit about your background as a filmmaker? 

I grew up in a small town in Germany and studied graphic design in Hamburg. I then went on to finish my degree in the UK, where I was lucky enough to be named the D&AD Student Of The Year for an ident I filmed for MTV. I then started out working in animation and visual effects in London before focusing more on directing, firstly music promos and idents, a few commercials, then documentary and short film projects. One of my narrative shorts, which was filmed over an intensive 24 hour period in a hotel in Berlin at the same time as three other film crews, went on to feature at Raindance and Cannes and a number of other international festivals. 

What has your experience been of being involved in the ‘ADCAN community’ and what sort of support have they been giving you? 

Being shortlisted for ADCAN was an invaluable experience - meeting so many inspiring people and establishing industry contacts. The workshops run by The Mill, Rattling Stick, Partizan, Nexus, Arri, Work Edit and Wave Studios, gave a nice insight into their work. I'm looking forward to continuing to collaborate with the ADCAN crew who have been amazing throughout. 

How do you think it will help you going forward? 

I feel inspired to make more work that is worthwhile and delivers an important message, as well as working on interesting scripts which deliver something unexpected. I've been fortunate to collaborate with really talented people and hope to continue to do so. 

What drew you to CALM as a charity?

The fact that the number one killer of British men under 45 years is suicide was a shocker for me. I admired CALM's bold approach to spreading awareness through down to earth language and humour and thought it was a real challenge to achieve this with just the right tone and balance. 

How did you find and approach their brief? It seemed fairly open-ended!

The crux of the brief for me was how we could change the perception of masculinity to get men to talk about their issues and help them to escape their predicament, and to do this with an unexpected and somewhat refreshing element of humour. 

I didn't want to do a voiceover in order to explain anything and was determined to tell a complete visual story in just 30 seconds with an unexpected twist at the end, in order for the film to finish on a positive and encouraging note. 

Your spot definitely got the most laughs from the audience when it was aired at the awards. Why did you choose a comedic approach and are you drawn to directing comedy? 

Thanks! It was great that the live audience responded so well to the film. Within advertising, I like work that doesn't take itself too seriously. I would love to explore all genres within my filmmaking and don't want to be pigeon holed within one area. I like films that cross genres and are not shy to go to dark places.  

The filmmakers I look up to like the Coen Brothers, Kubrick, and Haneke all have a way of using humour in their work but often have a dark, psychological edge. 

I'm also inspired by hard hitting films that leave you on the edge of your seat with unanswered questions such as the recent German thriller Victoria, and Under the Skin by Jonathan Glazier which are two films that are very visceral and really stay with you long after you've seen them.  

We love the ‘British gangster movie’ style, what made you use this genre for communicating the CALM message? (Have you always wanted to make a heist movie perhaps? ;))

The brief was to disrupt the modern expectation of masculinity in a funny but not flippant way. Gangster movies are a particularly masculine stereotype in British cinema which I felt that men under 45 would respond to. Think of Guy Richie's movies, you see all the complexities of their masculine gang warfare but you never see any complex character development, you don't see these men behind closed doors dealing with emotional issues – this is what I wanted to play on. 

It was fun to think of the stereotypical situations and emulate iconic gangster scenes such as the Tarantino boot of the car opening, the 'tooling up' of the gangsters (which can be seen in the extended 2min version of the film), and the inevitable 'chat'... you're building up expectation of violence but then taking the audience somewhere entirely different. You (hopefully) don't see the charity message coming, which was really important to me. 

The gangster genre also functioned as a powerful metaphor – the guy being gagged and unable to speak symbolising how men can often feel trapped by their own dark thoughts and unspoken emotions. 

It's also funny you ask if I want to make a heist movie as I'm actually playing with the idea of  a heist movie that's set in the former GDR in the seventies that involves a heist. But it's in early stages of development, so we'll see... 

How did the casting and pre-production go?

Thankfully, everything fell into place very quickly after my producer Mattes Neubauer and I decided to go ahead with the (T)Hugs idea. We sent the script around to some casting agents that Mattes knew and received great support from Emma Garrett at Garret Casting who helped us to find the right cast. Thanks to great friends and friends of friends most of our preproduction was pulled together in a week, alongside our day jobs. We also lucked out on the location which I stumbled upon while location scouting around Hackney Wick. I think the location and the cast really make the film what it is. 

How was the shoot itself? 

The shoot went surprisingly smoothly as we shot everything in one location on one day - we even wrapped on time which is so unusual for a no budget shoot. The crew was amazing and very professional.

Is there anything you would have done differently if you could?

I think you could always do with more time and more money, but that's the challenge of such a competition– there's nowhere to hide – it works or it doesn't. 

What next for you now, anything exciting on the horizon?

I'm in the process of writing a feature thriller that's set in Argentina which I'm looking to find production and finance support for, and have co-created a few short films (from sci-fi comedy to suspense drama) with two writer friends that I would love to bring to life over the next year or so. And as I'm currently independent, I also hope to find a home in a welcoming production company to work in commercials, music videos and film!