“So far, my films don’t contain dialogue. My research question is: how can I use language as a cinematic element without overshadowing the image?  In order to investigate this question I have written three short texts, based on personal memories. Each of these texts is the basis for two or three different screenplays. In each of them, language plays a different role.

The first text is 'Greifensee'. What begins and ends like a plain and simple holiday trip on a Swiss mountain lake, actually is a straightforward drama between a mother and her young daughter. Their relationship is deeply changed. On the basis of this text, I have written three screenplays: one with very little dialogue, in which the emotions are under the surface and shown trough the image; one with a great deal of dialogue, in which all emotions are explicitly articulated; and one with a voice over, in which we hear what the main character thinks. I will shoot the first version for KORT! 2013. I want to work with characters and their development, and explore the ways in which I can tell a story by the performance of actors, including dialogue. However, the other two screenplays based upon the same text are very helpful in exploring the potential of the film. I get to know the characters very well from different point of views.

Dialogue is more than words and their meaning. Dialogue is an element in a choreography, just like music, sound design, cinematography, et cetera. When I create a sequence of images for a film with much dialogue, these images may differ decisively from a film with no dialogue or a film with a voice over. In the second text, I am not shy, a thirteen year-old girl is ordered to visit a protestant pastor. I am converting this text into various screenplays. One of them is character driven, another one is plot driven. In the character driven version, the girl walks to the pastor and the things she sees during this walk, differ substantially from what happens in the plot driven version. In the first version, her emotion largely influences the action. A third version will be a voice over. Unlike 'Greifensee', where the voice over consists of the character’s thoughts, the voice over in I am not shy is the monologue of the character looking back.

For my investigations, I selected one particular scene with minimal narrative, a kind of tableau vivant: the businessman is seated on his hotel bed in the giant suite. Like him, his assistant, seated in the armchair, is dressed in a suit. They have a last drink. He confesses her that she is his very best friend. I want to develop this scene in two screenplays, each from one of both perspectives.