“For me, it’s more about the possibility the audience can feel something for this character rather than be perfectly technical”: Max Riemelt on About Luis at Zurich Film Festival 2024

At the 20^th edition of the Zurich Film Festival, Italian director Lucia Chiarla’s second feature celebrated its world premiere, before heading to the International Rome Film Festival and an eventual theatrical release in German-speaking territories in early 2025.

About Luis is based on Paco Bezerra’s play El pequeño poni, in which a couple is confronted with the fact that their son is bullied at school over his love for My Little Pony. In the film version, the offending object is a unicorn backpack, but like the source material, the picture raises important questions about conformity, society and responsibility.

Max Riemelt (whom international audiences may recognise from The Matrix Resurrections or Sense8) stars as Luis’s father, whose profession as a taxi driver sees him face a similar struggle as his son: sell out and go with the flow (in his case, join app-based ride-sharing) or risk falling by the wayside.

The Upcoming spoke to the prolific German actor in Zurich about the technical difficulties of shooting a chamber play centred around a car, and how helpful it was to be directed by someone who knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the camera.

Selina Sondermann

About Luis does not have a release date yet.