Union are coming to the big screen! Renowned documentary film director and producer Annekatrin Hendel (works including “Familie Brasch”, “Anderson”, “Vaterlandsverräter”) spent a good two years following 1. FC Union Berlin with her camera – from the Conference League summer to the team’s entry into the Champions League.
Fittingly, the result is a film that is very different from the many football documentaries of recent years. Instead, the camera dives deep into what the director calls the “engine room” of the club, where the club’s management and staff work day in, day out to ensure the club’s success – regardless of which competition Union are competing in.
“It was supposed to be a film about work from the very beginning. About the Union operation,” explained Hendel to her cinematic approach. “I was curious. What do they actually do there? Football has been played here for more than a hundred years, but I had the impression that they were somehow in a kind of state of emergency.
“So I wanted to create a film of the movement,” she continues. “To capture the magic of the real situation. Something always happens that you can’t make up. I was also interested in accompanying the day-to-day work beyond the spectacular match days, the daily drudgery. I didn’t want to explain the people at the club, I wanted to experience them. Every new day can be the best of all days. Or the worst.”
The Union players had many of these “best of all days” during the filming period, not one of them foreseeable. So it’s all the better that these moments have been captured for posterity.
“UNION – Die besten aller Tage” will be released in German cinemas on 04 April, 2024. It is in the original German and there are no planned screenings with subtitles.
UNION – DIE BESTEN ALLER TAGE is a production of IT WORKS! Medien in co-production with Rundfunk Berlin Brandenburg (rbb) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), with the support of Die Beauftragte für Kultur und Medien (BKM), Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), Deutscher Filmförderfonds (DFFF) and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB). It is published by WELTKINO FILMVERLEIH.