Interview with Johannes Wachsmuth

In The Black & White Game, a man is trapped in a black & white computer game where there are only two kind of avatars: the victims and the offenders, who attract each other. A mysterious beauty tries to free him, but he first has to play the role of other avatar first to crack the code of the game—i.e., the offender.

IAG: I love the story. It kind of reminds me of the old Twilight Zone series but updated to the digital age. How did you come up with this idea?

JW: Thank you very much for the compliment and for the award. I have been fascinated by the universal pattern of duality for a long time, which is why I have built up knowledge about it in recent years. And my artistic soul was now ready to express this input and this fascination. During my research, I came across psychologists such as Alfred Adler and Hermann Meyer, who state that the inhibited person who suppresses his abilities due to norms and values symbolizes the minus and, according to the law of attraction, always has to deal with the opposite, who symbolizes the plus and also suppresses his abilities, but compensates for them. Accordingly, the weak assertive person attracts the violent person, or somebody who feels guilty attracts the punisher, etc. The solution is thus in the self-realization of being who one is. So no longer plus or minus, which attract each other, but the unity in which the neuroses of the poles are resolved. My story should serve as a kind of equation for this cosmic pattern. I chose a computer game as the setting for my story, which is actually just a symbol for our world which is built up in pattern.

IAG: The surreal setting of the film is almost like a character of the film. Where did you shoot it?

JW: I shot the film in spring 2023 in the Algarve region in southern Portugal. The summer before I went on vacation there with my family, we drove our Volkswagen bus from Berlin to Portugal (about 3000 KM), which you can also see in the film. We discovered so many beautiful locations there that were freely accessible, huge beaches where there wasn't a soul in June. I shot a short film there with my wife and after the result was good, we both said to ourselves that from now on we should shoot feature films and no more short films. So we came back in the spring to shoot this film with simple resources. This region is fantastic for low-budget filming. 

IAG: I know this is first feature film. What kind of work did you do before making this film?

JW: After my seemingly endless time as a pupil, I decided not to go to university and started working as an intern on a TV movie set as a set runner, then I became a production driver and first assistant to the 1st AD and also slipped into other positions. For about 5 years I worked on various TV movie sets in Germany and at the same time applied to film schools to become a director, but I was always rejected. But the longer I worked in this industry, the more I lost my passion and creativity. After I met and married Tania (the supporting actress in the movie) in 2013, we successfully founded a hemp fashion label and sold our fashion worldwide (Tania is a fashion designer). But more and more I felt the urge to express myself as an artist through filmmaking, which I had been suppressing more and more. One evening I sat down at the computer and created a short film (about the patterns of creation) from stock videos. It turned out quite well and Tania convinced me that we should send it to a festival. We did and the surprise was great when I won first prize for best director at this international film festival. This changed something big in me and from that day on I had the belief that I was a film director. I founded my video label WUNDERWALD, made commercials and music videos to gain experience and learn everything about lighting on YouTube. Then I made two short films that were also accepted into festival programs until I finally made my first feature film. From then on, my path is clear for me. This summer I also founded a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@wunderwald_films) where I show my way to make this feature film and other works.

IAG: I love the black-and-white look. It works perfectly for your film – it adds to the surreal tone, somewhat reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch’s delightfully eerie “Dead Man”. I assume you converted digital footage to B/W in post-production. Can you share any insights into that process, any tricks or challenges?

JW: At first, I wanted the film to be colorful and the script didn't mention that the protagonist was trapped in a black-and-white computer game, and the title of the film wasn't clear either. But then I decided on black and white because it turned out to be easier for my first film to make the movie in black and white because you could neglect different lighting situations and it's easier to make every scene match. I later read that this was the reason why many filmmakers shoot their first films in black and white. I then adapted the script and put the protagonist not just in a computer game, but in a black and white computer game, where he also perceived everything in black and white. I was very euphoric at this stage because black and white are the perfect symbols for duality, the theme of the movie. The working title "The Vicious Circle Game" then became "The Black and White Game". The film was shot digitally with the „Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4k“ and then converted to black and white in post-production at color grading. The film would also have been beautiful in color (see the color still I included). To make the look even more dreamy I used a "Bloom" effect from the ingenious software "Dehancer". 

IAG: What’s your next project?

JW: I am already in the late pre-production phase of my new project. This time I'm taking the theme of duality a little further. The title is „Worm, Cocoon and Butterfly“. The transformation of the main character will be even more drastic, as the title suggests. My wife Tania, who played the mysterious woman in "The Black and White Game", now has the leading role and I myself have a small supporting role, having already played the leading role in my first feature film.

IAG: What are three films that have inspired you?

JW:

• Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé

• Blue Velvet by David Lynch

• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick