Interview with Hanna Schygulla: Where is home for you?

Ms. Schygulla, how often does your phone ring with a young director wanting to cast you in his next film?

It really doesn't happen all that often. But sometimes it does. Fatih Akin comes to mind with "The Other Side" or the French director François Ozon with "Peter von Kant"—which had a special charm because Ozon's work was based on Fassbinder's "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant." And I was there in the early 1970s, too.

And now the director Ameer Fakher Eldin, who was born in Kyiv in 1991 and grew up on the Golan Heights, has asked you to play the landlady of a guesthouse on a Hallig island in the North German Wadden Sea: Were you astonished by the offer?

First, I asked Ameer Fakher Eldin whether he really found me convincing as an island native. I also had the idea that he was attributing my fate to a refugee who had landed me on the Hallig Langeneß. That seemed plausible to me. After all, I know this fate firsthand: I was a toddler when my mother fled with me from Upper Silesia to Munich in 1945 to escape the Red Army.

What did your director answer?

He wasn't interested in such details at all. Eventually, he finally said I could include whatever I wanted in my dialogue. But by then, I had long since realized that my character didn't need such a biographical background. "Yunan" is primarily about alienation and isolation. A desperate Syrian writer in exile is drawn to a Hallig island.

He finds comfort with Valeska, the landlady you play. How does Valeska rescue him from his sadness?

She lets him into her life and tells him: Why do you look at the world so lost? Just open your eyes, boy! But she doesn't preach; it happens more instinctively. She lends him a bicycle, for example. She senses his lostness and, in her rather gruff way, doesn't leave him alone. Sometimes life has a greater appeal than the great unknown—than death.

Dancing on a Hallig: Georges Khabbaz and Hanna Schygulla in a scene from the film "Yunan".

Source: -/© 2025 Red Balloon Film, Prod

Can you imagine sitting on a Hallig, looking out over the mudflats and reflecting on your life?

It depends on who I'm bringing with me. It would have to be someone close to me. The emptiness on a Hallig like this does something to you. You have to fill it with something of your own.

Your character Valeska clearly possesses a fair amount of wisdom. Does wisdom come with age?

Well, no one who lives long enough is immune to that. I've developed a certain serenity. I can let go of things, even allow them to happen—that's what the word implies. I no longer have to fight for anything. This inner freedom is very helpful when my strength is waning. Let the others struggle and argue.

But you presented your film "Yunan" at the Berlinale. A festival like that is exhausting, with tight deadlines, rushing, noise, and excitement. Why do you put yourself through this stress?

I wanted to give the film a little boost. If my performances make "Yunan" a little more visible among so many other films, then that's great. But I don't necessarily need red carpets in my life anymore.

Can you identify with the feeling of alienation that the Syrian writer feels on the Hallig?

Absolutely, in several respects. For those involved in art and culture, the unfamiliar is also an inspiration: You need a foreign perspective on something familiar. Otherwise, we wouldn't need to redesign anything. You suddenly realize that so many things that seem self-evident aren't self-evident at all. Entirely new perspectives on life are also possible. As an actress, in particular, I can immerse myself in a foreign life without bearing the ultimate consequences. I can also leave this life again.

Where else have you encountered strangeness in your life?

I had a lot to do with it during my childhood in Munich. One feeling in particular has stuck with me from that time: I was the refugee child. There were even worse words the schoolchildren called me. One I didn't understand at all back then: "Polen-Matz." I thought it translated as "The Polish Girl." In fact, it was "The Polish Pig," as I learned later. It was probably a good thing I didn't know the insult: ignorance is sometimes a defense.

Is home a place for you?

For me, home means being at peace with myself. When I'm at peace within myself, but not just focused on myself. Then I find myself in a kind of balance. As the Americans say, "Home is where my heart is." So, where my heart beats, that's where I want to be at home.

And what does your heart beat for?

For everything that has to do with love in the broadest sense. It certainly doesn't beat for a high bank balance. Although I must add: I can afford the luxury of not having to think about money. Many others aren't in that privileged position.

Did the Munich acting troupe around Rainer Werner Fassbinder mean home to you in the seventies?

No, I never really felt like I belonged to that group. Even though they had a nice house with a swimming pool on the outskirts of Munich. But I never really immersed myself in that commune. I always just went there by bike. It was teeming with filmmakers. You just wandered in, it was fun.

Have you been drawn into the intrigues that are always talked about in Fassbinder's circle?

I wasn't really affected by that. Maybe they didn't like me very much and that's why they left me alone. That's what happens when someone has more career opportunities than others. Then they either admire or envy you.

And where is your home today?

For a long time, I thought Berlin would be my final destination. But now I'm leaving Berlin behind again. Two cities are too much for me. The balancing act between Paris and Berlin is too great.

What does your life in Paris look like?

Everything's close by. When I go shopping, I pass my favorite place, a bistro. It's called Le Temps des Cerises. I can have a coffee there or a good meal. The bistro feels like home, even if I don't run into people I know there all the time.

Does the topic of flight and expulsion still accompany you today?

I work with Afghan refugees, with unaccompanied young people. They came to Germany as minors and, within a few years, have become something of themselves. However, I'm not sure if I can continue this work in the future.

Are young people from Afghanistan afraid in a Germany that only seems to think about how to deport refugees as quickly as possible?

No, these people are now integrated. They have jobs, they can earn a living. In fact, I was impressed by how openly German companies treated them. There are more tolerant Germans than you might think when you follow the heated debates about refugees. I believe that fear reflexes lurk behind these debates anyway.

What do you understand by that?

There's so much uncertainty about how things will continue here in Germany. There's much more to it than just the few foreigners who are here. They're being used as scapegoats: it's always someone else's fault. Germans should be happy, though. Without the foreigners, everything here would collapse. Nurses, service personnel, even doctors would be in huge shortages.

Do you still feel at home in a country where politicians throw around right-wing slogans?

Not at home, and I certainly don't feel at home. It wasn't long ago that we Germans experienced what hatred does to people. In post-war Germany, in Munich, it was still palpable. That's why I immediately went to Paris as an au pair. I had this urge to get out of the Nazi nest of Munich. Many of my generation felt the same way, especially in the film scene. Think of Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta, who also moved to France. Wim Wenders was drawn to America.

Are you afraid for democratic Germany?

The resistance to right-wing extremism is still strong here. In France, at least, I haven't seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets recently. And the French enjoy protesting. In Germany, on the other hand, there have been several demonstrations against right-wing extremism. But of course, I'm concerned about the rise of nationalism in Germany. It has always brought only misery and war to its people.