How the Director’s Grandma Inspired Her to Make ‘Agnes & Amir’

Feel-good comedy “Agnes & Amir,” which had its world premiere on Sunday at the Munich Film Festival, probably wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the grandmother of director Helena Hufnagel.

The film was inspired by the true story of a 101-year-old Berlin woman, Agnes, and a young, gay Iranian refugee, Amir. In order to avoid being moved into a nursing home, Agnes invited Amir to live in her apartment, which proved to be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Hufnagel first came across their story thanks to a documentary about them, which aired on cultural channel Arte and German broadcaster ZDF, both of which are partners on her narrative adaptation of their story.

She tells Variety, “I saw it with my grandma, and she was 96 at the time, and she said, ‘I would never dare to do something like that,’ and that was the moment when I thought, ‘Okay, I have to do the movie,’ and the funny thing is, while we were doing the movie – it took us three years – she lived the story we were telling. She was so encouraged by me doing the movie – I told her everything about it – that she got a home help from Poland to move into her house and they became friends. And for the last couple of months, she had to go to a nursing home, and there she became friends, like really best friends, with a 20-year-old girl.”

She adds, “This was like the proof for me that this is a possibility that is inside of all of us. Agnes and Amir are not an exception; everyone could have this opportunity or possibility to have such a friendship, even if they are like years apart. You just have to dare. Like, [my grandma] was living the story while we were shooting it. And so, this movie wouldn’t exist without her, actually. I probably wouldn’t have done it.”

It’s about friendship
The issues that the film deals with are very serious: the persecution of gay people in Iran; the loneliness of the elderly; the growing hostility toward refugees in Germany; and the traumatic experiences of those in wartime. However, it is a comedy, so getting the tone right was key.

“We were thinking about this a lot, and I was aware of the political climate I was doing the movie in, and I thought of it as my personal, quiet antidote against this political climate [in which the prevalent attitude is things like]: ‘Refugees are a problem’ and ‘Elderly people are a burden.’ And doing a movie about a 100-year-old Berliner and a gay Iranian refugee in this time we have right now, it’s already a political statement in itself.”

She continues, “But it’s not a film about a refugee – it’s about friendship – and this comes along with it because this is the plot we have and … yeah … I thought, ‘I want to feel the audience being warmer when they go out [of the movie theater].’ And loneliness is another big topic but maybe they don’t feel alone for a little bit because they’re sitting in a room with a lot of strangers out of their bubble.

“And, so I thought, ‘No, we go for the friendship and for the warm part.’ The warm chemistry between them is something I was aiming for the whole time on set. I kept going for the warm moments between them. Like when they are arguing, when they’re fighting, when they’re drinking tea together. And this is something which was so important to me … to bring this warmth.”

It was the feeling she had observed when watching her grandma with her young friends that she took into the movie.

Her grandmother helped in other ways. “My grandma was always saying I stole a line from her. I was always asking, ‘How did you get so old,’ like she was the only one left of that age, and she said, ‘You cannot stop being curious about the world,’ and so I thought the movie is an invitation to be curious and to stay curious, and yeah, this is something I was aiming at, more than the political side, which comes along with the characters.”

Culture clash
German audiences are looking forward to seeing the performance of Katharina Thalbach, who plays Agnes. Thalbach is one of Germany’s most acclaimed and beloved actresses. Internationally, she is best known for her roles in Volker Schlöndorff’s Palme d’Or- and Oscar-winning “The Tin Drum” and Alan J. Pakula’s “Sophie’s Choice.”

“She’s very famous here in Germany, but you won’t recognize her. We did a lot of tests … camera tests, makeup tests, makeup artist test. She’s 72, but she’s playing 30 years older. This took us three months to build this character with her, but I think you still get her warmth and her strength and her humor, and this is something probably the German audience is looking for.”

She stars opposite emerging actor Bardo Böhlefeld, who was nominated for best new actor at Munich in 2022 for “All Russians Love Birch Trees.” His father is German, but his mother’s family are all from Iran and he can speak Farsi. “He knows the culture [of Iran] very well,” she says. “We worked a lot on this, and I improvised a lot on set. Some things went far beyond the script, just because I took the chemistry and the moments between them, and I really like that he brought these Iranian culture clash things. We did all the research, but it’s always something different when the actor is bringing it in, because he knows himself how it is, and that was very funny.”

One memorable line is when Amir says that in Persian culture people say no when offered food out of politeness but on the third time of asking, they say yes. To which Agnes responds tartly that she is Prussian and Prussians say ‘No’ only once, and that is it. “It is so funny because this is actually how they are in real life as well, and we took this moment on set and I really had to grab it, and I thought, like, ‘Oh my god, I will never get this when I write it.’ I really need to find these scenes here [on set].”

Iranian backdrop
Events in Iran unfolded so rapidly in the three years it took to produce the movie – such as the street protests and the violence of the security forces unleashed against the protestors – that Hufnagel had to make changes in the editing room to reflect that. The feelings of the actors with family back in Iran also had an influence on the tone of the film.

Summertime in Berlin
Berlin plays an important role in the film, Hufnagel explains. “I tried to find locations that I thought would fit with Agnes’ old character, but also with Amir, the young character. It’s kind of a road trip through Berlin, like it is now. You’re going through time with her, but also you’re living in the present with him. And I really like that people are getting a sense of the city.

“I was trying to tell [the story] in the summer because it’s a lot about loneliness, and I thought it’s very easy to tell it in the wintertime because people are obviously lonely in the wintertime, but in the summertime, when everyone is outside and everyone feels that they have a connection with someone else, and people are hanging around, this is when I think people feel the loneliest, because you see everyone else is happy around you, or has someone to spend the day with, and these people are both lonely.”

Triumph over adversity
There are a lot of different strands to the story: a gay love story; Amir’s relationship with Agnes; his refugee status battle; the political situation back in Iran; and a dance contest. How did she ensure that these multiple storylines weren’t confusing for the audience?

“Yeah, to be honest, we shot a lot more than is in the movie,” she says, “because every one of these strands had its full storyline, but in the editing room I concentrated just on the friendship of the two main characters, and I thought the rest is more like atmosphere, which adds to the characters, and just to tell the story of the strong, miracle friendship they have.”

She adds, “I didn’t search for conflict within their relationship, it’s always coming from the outside to them, and they have to fight against it, and this is why all the other characters are in the film, or the other story lines are in it, because this is something I thought about a lot: that most of the time it’s not the conflict between them, maybe it’s a culture clash, or it’s an age gap, because you don’t know the music [for example], but it’s not a conflict, this is not a conflict scene, it’s more about curiosity. There’s a lot of antagonism from the outside to this friendship, and how to stay strong and to keep it alive, this was the story I really wanted to tell.”

Bursting the bubble
The movie is aimed at a broad audience, she says, “because I think that it is so important to tell stories from outside the bubble, and I would really wish that people from all different kinds of bubbles would go into the movie and see that this friendship would not happen if you stay inside your bubble or if an app or an algorithm is trying to match them. You just need to go outside, and maybe the unfamiliar is something you won’t expect to work, but it’s probably the best thing that could happen to you, and so I didn’t think about a specific audience, more about people who accept the invitation to stay curious. This is the audience I’m aiming for.”

The missing VIP
At the premiere in Munich on Sunday, one person was missing: Hufnagel’s grandma. “Oh, well … unfortunately, she passed away three weeks ago. I would have loved to show her the movie. We were very close, and they have a lot in common, Agnes and my grandmother. But yeah … I’m so very happy that I could … She passed away almost in the week we were finishing everything as if she would have to carry the movie until the end. It’s … yeah … it’s just because it’s so warm and she was very old; it was not because of illness or sickness. She was just very old.”

The film will be released in Germany by X Verleih on Nov. 19 – in Hufnagel’s words, “a heartwarming movie in the wintertime.” Beta Cinema has international sales rights.