Humour that brings people together: the actor, director, and screenwriter Monika Anna Wojtyllo
To date, Monika Wojtyllo has acted in a large number of films, series and TV plays, including several episodes of “Tatort” (a popular, long-running crime fiction programme – translator’s note) and the high-end, award-winning crime series “Im Angesicht des Verbrechens” by Dominik Graf. Usually, she can be seen in smaller roles, such as the Minister for Education in “Die geschützten Männer” (2024) or as Daniela in the Netflix Original film “Betonrausch” (2019). She played bigger roles as Agnieszka Gutek in the tragicomedy “Global Player – Wo wir sind isch vorne” (2013) or as “Schwester Irina” in the first series of “Doktor Ballouz” (since 2021).
In addition to her own films, for which she also wrote the script, her work also includes short films and music videos, as well as the full-length film “Polska Love Serenade” (2008), which also stars her father. The comedy, which is set over the Christmas period, takes Polish clichés about Germans and German prejudices against Poles to the extreme and portrays a comical, warm-hearted rapprochement between the two cultures, personified by two of the characters, Anna from Germany and Max from Poland.
From the outside, all you see is the finished film. You don’t witness the amount of work that goes into making it. People who don’t work in the film industry find it particularly hard to imagine how many script versions and unfinished projects get cast aside during the process. It takes many years to develop a film and to find producers for it. Often during that time, hardly any money is paid, or is only paid later on. The general public usually only gets to see the tip of the iceberg: the small number of successful directors who bring out a new cinema film every few years. But how many of them are women?
That’s why Monika Wojtyllo is also active in other areas. From 2012 to 2016, for example, she paired up with Hennink Stöve to head the Filmschlossfest film festival in Schloss Beesenstedt palace, and has been a member of both the Grimme Prize committee and the Fritz Gerlich Prize committee.
Currently, one of the projects she is working on is the creation of a large film industry event during the Berlinale. The aim of the BERLINALE FILM HOSPITAL is to bring all film associations under one roof and over three or four days to exchange knowledge, create networks and, in the middle of the crisis in the film industry, to regain a sense of the light-heartedness that inspires creativity. Monika Wojtyllo puts it bluntly: “Since our industry is completely broke, I’m still looking for sponsors from other fields. My general motto is: we’re sexy and offer content and famous stars; you bring the money to pay for them and can party with us. And yes, that’s a call for applications! You’re welcome to contact us via the editor’s office!”
That aside, Monika Wojtyllo is also busy with a new film project: a psychological thriller about cancel culture with just one character, who slowly descends into madness in his apartment. “Even so,” she says, “knowing me, the film will be funny anyway. Humour is and always will be the best way to beat depression.”
According to Monika Wojtyllo, there is certainly reason to feel depressed, or at least concerned. She not only worries about the precarious situation in which the German film industry finds itself, but also the anti-democratic tendencies in many countries in Europe. With regard to Poland, she says: “I admire the spirit of this country, which has been kicked and trampled on from all sides, and which is now rising like a phoenix out of the ashes as one of the last democratic bastions of Europe.” She doesn’t travel regularly to her homeland. She’d like to spend more time there, but she’s also happy living where she is now, in Berlin-Kreuzberg. For her taste, it could be slightly more beautiful and peaceful, but she enjoys the multicultural environment and the open-mindedness of the people who live there. For a long time now, she has spoken better German than Polish, and regards herself as being very assimilated. However, she adds, laughing: “Only my soul is not up for grabs!” When it comes to German-Polish relations, she has the impression that Germany is almost entirely unaware of what is happening in Poland. In her eyes, in light of the “madness going on in Ukraine,” Poland is Germany’s most important neighbour. Not only that, but it’s also a country that has largely been able to rid itself of a reactionary party. In this regard, Germany could learn from Poland. Finally, Monika Wojtyllo explains the change in her surname from Wojtyłło to Wojtyllo: “I’ve no idea when it happened,” she says. “Probably in some office or other during the application process for citizenship, because the official couldn’t find the special symbol on the keyboard. Probably my parents thought that this was how it should be spelled, since that was how it was written. Otherwise, our identity hasn’t changed much. The fact is that I’m stuck in a memory of Poland anno domini 1985. My parents have successfully preserved the romantic aura of rebellion.”
Anselm Neft, January 2025
The artist online: https://www.monikawojtyllo.com/
