Jailhouse shock
German drama A Better Place wonders what society would be like if there were no prisons. Producers David Keitsch and Nicolas Loock take DQ into the idea behind the series and explain how they sought to explore the benefits – and consequences – of this revolutionary experiment.
While prison systems around the world can vary wildly in their approach to the treatment and rehabilitation of the inmates they support, there is a general consensus on the need to have them.
But a new German drama is about to explore whether the world would be better off without any prisons at all.
Set in the fictional city of Rhinestadt, A Better Place brings together progressive mayor Amir (Steven Sowah) and scientist Petra (Maria Hofstätter), who decide to launch a revolutionary experiment that will see the local prison closed and its prisoners – ranging from murderers to petty thieves – reintegrated into society. Instead of being punished behind bars, they are given work, housing and therapy – and must face the consequences of their crimes in the real world.
Across eight hours, the stories of the newly released offenders are explored as they return to the city and struggle against prejudice and failure, while the city’s residents, the victims and their families are torn between a desire for forgiveness and the need for justice.
“What happens is that you have a kaleidoscope of a city and we’re following different groups of characters and what this programme does to them,” producer David Keitsch tells DQ. “It’s a complex topic, but it’s connected to very emotional and also very personal questions where you are very much allowed to have very different opinions.”
“It was very important for us to have these multi-layered stories, with the mayor and Petra but also the families, because we are asking very theoretical questions but we need to answer them with a human angle,” says fellow producer Nicolas Loock.
Produced by Keitsch’s Komplizen Serien, Loock’s StudioCanal Series, Film AG, WDR and ARD Degeto for Germany’s ARD, Canal+ France and Canal+ Austria, the drama comes from creators Alexander Lindh (Druck) and Laurent Mercier (Eden), who were already working on the scripts by the time they pitched the idea to Komplizen.
As the writing continued, new partners joined the production and further research was undertaken to explore the themes of the series and any real-life parallels that could be found to root the story in reality.
“We have been talking to scientists, legal experts, to politicians. We had been visiting prisons, of course, and a theatre that works with former and current inmates,” Keitsch says. “There had been visits to closed psychiatric institutions, even taking part in therapy sessions with rapists and child molesters. We, of course, have also been closely speaking to victim counsels. So there is a whole lot of research.” Some of that was also undertaken by the “very engaged” ensemble cast, who were motivated to dig into the characters they would play and the circumstances that led them to where they find themselves in the story.
Yet the producers always sought to strike a balance between representing real life and creating entertainment. “It’s not a documentary,” Keitsch continues. “Of course there are higher stakes here and there. But the overall context is our world. I would describe it as very realistic, very authentic, very human and following very human impulses.”
There were also numerous discussions about the rules for the prison release programme and what might happen to any offenders found to commit more crimes after being released. Those rules are presented to viewers in the form of an animated clip at the start of episode two.
“It was a really nice idea because we were really struggling [with that] during the development process,” Loock says. “You don’t want to make it too boring, like a presentation, but you need to understand the rules because otherwise people get frustrated. They say, ‘OK, but if they do something wrong, what happens? I need to know.’”
“If you make a mistake within the programme, the makers care more about understanding why you do this – unless you are part of a criminal organisation or something threatening. That would be an exception,” Keitsch notes. “But then during the course of the season, they start to adjust things because people in the city ask for more security because there’s not enough trust [in the programme]. There is also not enough understanding about the complexity of each individual’s progress because it is easy to undermine or understate the programme. You can have 300 released prisoners where for 290 of them, everything works 100% well and is just perfect. Just five or 10 of them [reoffending] is enough to complicate the whole thing.”
Lindh and Mercier developed the project, before showrunner Lindh wrote the series with a team including Karin Kaçi, Bahar Bektas, Nora Gantenbrink, Daniel Hendler, Emanuel Tessema, Maryam Zaree and Svenja Viola Bungarten.
With such a big writers room, communication was key – as it also was with the numerous broadcast partners involved in the project alongside distributor StudioCanal, which is handling global sales. “But they all had the same vision from day one,” Loock says. “That was very important.”
Partners were also involved in the casting process, with Canal+ in France integral to the decision to bring French-speaking German actor Richard Sammel (Un village Français) on board. “He was really important for them because he’s really well known in France,” Loock says. “He’s an awesome actor, so when you say that [suggestion], you go for it immediately.”
“But of course, for us it was important to always make the right decision in terms of the right person for the character, first of all,” Keitsch says, “and then secondly to follow these understandable requests from each territory.
“The most important point is you make sure everybody has the same understanding of the vision. If you then disagree on a specific point during this path, you’ll find a compromise as long everybody agrees on the vision in the first place.”
Rhinestadt was recreated from numerous towns and cities across North Rhine-Westphalia – including Monchengladbach, Leverkusen, Cologne, Wuppertal and others – while the production also spent two days in Austria as part of a German-Austrian coproduction agreement and Austria’s FISA+ tax incentive scheme. With a budget close to €15m (US$15.8m), further support came from the German Motion Picture Fund, the Film and Media Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia and Creative Europe Media.
Yet despite being made up of numerous locations, Rhinestadt is “almost a character in itself,” Loock says. “We basically built it from scratch and had an amazing opportunity to invent the world.”
That world also had to be populated by numerous characters, each with competing and overlapping storylines. “So it’s been not only a challenge in the complexity of the topic, but also in the multi-plot dramaturgy and using all the characters involved, connecting them and showing all their storylines,” Keitsch says. “We have 11 or 12 lead roles and six main plot lines that are intertwined with each other and, on top of that, dozens more roles, showing the wider scale and the society. It’s a lot, and it’s always a task to balance screen time for each character.”
On set, there was “quite a big crew” to handle the large acting ensemble, which features Hofstätter, Sowah, Katharina Schüttler, Johannes Kienast, Sandra Borgmann, Sammel, Ulrich Brandhoff, Alev Irmak, Youness Aabbaz, Aysima Ergün, Cynthia Micas and Constantin von Jascheroff.
With close to 80 shooting days in total, a further 20 days were completed concurrently by a second unit, such was the volume of material needed for the series. Meanwhile, lead director Anne Zohra Berrached fostered an environment where improvisation was encouraged, and the cast found a freedom of movement to bring their characters to life.
“To implement this into a TV structure was quite a task, especially when you tend to work very pragmatically for budget and time reasons,” Keitsch says. “But what we tried to do is defend a cinematic working style within a TV structure. This is where we invested our money, so we don’t have this one action scene or car explosions, but we have a lot of quality layers within our normal world.”
Berrached and fellow director Konstantin Bock also collaborated heavily across all eight episodes to ensure there was continuity in the show’s visual style. “They really worked as a team,” Keitsch says. “Anne is the more experienced director so she took the lead but, putting that aside, they fully worked as a close team on everything together, and this worked.”
With a plan to continue the story over three seasons should it prove a hit with viewers, A Better Place is now set to be released in Germany on the ARD Mediathek streaming service on January 10, followed by its linear premiere on Das Erste on January 22.
“It’s unique. It has a German identity but it’s a very European show and has a very international format and tone,” Keitsch says. “I would position it somewhere between Scandi noir or a Ken Loach film, or Manchester by the Sea. In terms of TV series, The Leftovers is a good reference, with a bit of The Wire. And because of the universal aspects of the topic and its beautiful characters with emotional performances by this ensemble, I really think it will resonate with people worldwide.”
tagged in: A Better Place, ARD Degeto, Canal+, David Keitsch, Komplizen Serien, Nicolas Loock, StudioCanal, StudioCanal Series, WDR