Yahoo Lifestyle Sarah Miro Fischer on How Her Debut ‘The Good Sister,’ Competing in Berlin’s Panorama, Examines the Far-Reaching ‘Consequences’ of Assault
Sarah Miro Fischer’s debut feature, “The Good Sister,” debuts in the Panorama section at this year’s Berlinale, and Variety has been given exclusive access to the film’s trailer. We also caught up with the newly minted director, who talked us through the development and production processes for her largely student-led production.
Set in Berlin, the film turns on Rose, a young woman who faces a life-altering dilemma when she is asked to testify as a witness in a rape case against her older brother, Sam. “The Good Sister” is co-written by Fischer and Agnes Maagaard Petersen and presents a gripping narrative that explores the deep emotional ramifications the trial has on the family.
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You co-wrote this film with Agnes Maagaard Petersen. How did you find that process, and how did the two of you divide your responsibilities?
Fischer: Because this wasn’t our first project together, so there was a lot of trust and admiration from the beginning. It was a beautiful process. Initially, I had this idea about, “What if your brother was accused of assaulting someone?” That was the first question we started with. When Agnes jumped on, it was great to have a dynamic between two minds bouncing things back and forth. It made the process very quick because we had immediate reactions. We worked for a long time on the treatment, so when we did our first drafts, which we wrote separately but simultaneously, they were very similar because the treatment was so developed. After production started, she also visited the set, and we talked regularly throughout the process. It was a beautiful process working with her.
Can you talk about the jump from being a short filmmaker and a student to now doing a full-on 90-minute feature that made it into competition at one of Europe’s biggest festivals?
Fischer: I was just very curious the whole time. I feel like what drove me was curiosity. I enjoyed going through each of the steps of the project, which are drawn out longer on a feature. I remember working with Marie Bloching, the lead. After about two weeks, there was a connection between us, and we could communicate almost without words. Having these longer relationships on a project was a rewarding experience. There were also challenges, of course, because the dramaturgy of a short film is very different from that of a feature film.
This film shows the collateral damage of abuse. What inspired you to take this perspective for your story?
Fischer: I think it’s interesting to look at the consequences of such a deed on the people around the victim and the perpetrator in this case. It’s an interesting position that I feel many of us know in different contexts, when you’re close to a conflict but not directly affected. It still has an effect, and you have to decide how you want to navigate the situation. I feel like it becomes so complex when it’s someone very near to you. It’s not something where you can turn off the TV and continue your life as normal. It has a very concrete effect, and I hadn’t seen that much before in films or stories.
I think it’s important that you portrayed the brother character as a human being capable of this terrible act, not as a monster.
Fischer: Yeah, I feel that it was essential to us that he was not necessarily sympathetic but that he was a human and that humans do these things. We tried to do it in the beginning by showing that he’s someone whose younger sister goes to for comfort. He’s this safe space for her, and his house was a nest where she could come crawling in at night and feel like a little cat balled up on the foot of his bed. Then, we can take that away again. The information comes, and suddenly, the safety doesn’t feel as safe anymore, and there’s a shift in how she perceives him and how he’s behaving. Rose wants him to be this good brother, and she really needs him to be what she sees in him at the beginning of the film. That’s what makes it so hard for her to decide what to do.
Can you talk about the relationship between your two lead actors and how it developed through the production?
Fischer: We had roughly two weeks of rehearsals before shooting. We improvised many scenes between the siblings that had nothing to do with the story or the film, just to create a back story or a dynamic. In any family, there’s this side of you that is always there when you’re with each other. You have a role that you play again and again, and we needed to kind of to fine-tune these roles for the two of them. When filming started, they were both very open to rehearse in this way, and we all got to know each other much better. On set, tension built up throughout the shoot because we shot mostly chronologically. Not strictly, but mostly. This created a sense of distancing between the characters that actually affected the mood on set. At the beginning of the shoot, the team was in a good mood and almost playful. Throughout filming, things got more serious on set as people got more into the moment because the story was more serious. It was an intriguing process to observe.
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