A Portrait of producers Jonas Katzenstein and Maximilian Leo

“It’s a dream job being a producer,” say Maximilian (Max) Leo and Jonas Katzenstein, co-founders in 2008 of Cologne-based augenschein Filmproduktion whose diverse output has ranged from an arthouse gem like Nana & Simon’s MY HAPPY FAMILY through Patrick Vollrath’s drama 7500 to current productions like MOTHER MARY by David Lowery or Jan-Ole Gerster’s English-language debut with the thriller ISLANDS which will have its world premiere in this year’s Berlinale Special Gala line-up.

In many ways, Max and Jonas have their fathers to thank for instilling in them a passion for cinema that eventually led them to follow a career in this industry. “Looking back, I see that my father was a real cineaste and I was allowed to watch every­thing except for ALIEN,” Max recalls. “And when my parents went to the drive-in cinema, I pretended to be asleep in the back of the car so I could see films like STAR WARS and BLUES BROTHERS. That made a lasting impression on me!”

Meanwhile, Jonas’s taste in cinema growing up was influenced by his journalist father’s love of French cinema. “I wasn’t so interested in the American blockbuster movies at that time – that came later – and then I would hang out with friends watching films like NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or Wes Anderson’s THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU, while AMERICAN BEAUTY had a great impact on me personally,” Jonas explains.

At school, Max put on school plays and made no-budget videos with friends, but there was a real turning point when he became the writer-director for a musical BETWEEN THE NIGHTS for a fellow pupil who had composed the score. “It became a great success winning awards and launching the international careers of many of those taking part,” he says.

Max subsequently made his first foray into the media world by working as one of Germany’s first video journalists producing documentaries set as far afield as Afghanistan and the Okavango Delta before enrolling at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne in 2005 to major in Feature Film Direction.

Jonas hadn’t initially considered that the film industry might be a destination for him as a career, “but then I met someone when I was finishing my Voluntary service. He was really enthusiastic about the idea of working in films and that made me think that this could also be something for me.”

He took his first step towards this goal by studying Audio Engineering at the SAE Institute in Cologne and then established his own sound studio “artaudio” in the city in 2004.

Then, another stroke of serendipity saw a common friend bring Jonas and Max together. “Max was look­ing for some professional help for the sound on his short film WINDSCHIEF, this led to a col­laboration and us then setting up the company together,” Jonas recalls. “We’ve complemented one another from the very beginning of working together with each of our particular mindsets,” Max observes. “Jonas is the problem finder and I’m the one solving them.”

Jonas adds: “Max is more the guy for the empty sheet of paper and doing the first draft, financing plan and logline whereas I am more the one who’s thinking about all of this as well as the strategic side.”

“When I worked on Max’s short, I realised this is the perfect job for me,” he explains. “I love the crea­tive part of developing a project and being the guy thinking aloud in a group with the writers. There are constantly new challenges so, for example, if you make a film set underwater, you then dive into a whole new area and have to learn everything about diving!”

“The intersection of reality and vision and making things happen is what makes being a producer so appealing,” Max suggests. “As a producer you have one foot in the world of the financiers and the distri­butors and the other in the creative world of directors, writers, DOPs and actors.”

“What makes me really happy is that we are now making the kind of movies that made me go to the cinema before I started working in the industry. I never thought that we would come to make films like THE ASSESSMENT, MOTHER MARY, THE FISHERWOMAN or ISLANDS with such incredible casts”, he concludes.

Martin Blaney