IT
| Original Title | Das Geheime Stockwerk |
|---|---|
| Movie Type | Feature |
| Genre | |
| Section | |
| Country | Austria, Germany, Luxembourg |
| Production Year | 2025 |
| Movie Length | 95' |
| Director | |
| Cast | Silas John Annika Benzin Maximilian Reinwald Marc Limpach Marie Jung |
| Casting | Bady Minck |
| Director of Photography | |
| Editor | |
| Animation | |
| Production Designer | Christina Schaffer |
| Costume Designer | Uli Simon |
| Makeup | Astrid Lehmann |
| Music | Martin Unterberger |
| Sound Designer | Hjalti Bager-Jonathansson |
| Produced by | Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu André Fetzer Norbert Lechner Bady Minck |
| Production | (Austria, (Germany) / Amour Fou, Kevin Lee Film, Luxembourg) |
| International Distribution | |
| Festival Contact |
SECRET FLOOR, THE | Das Geheime Stockwerk
Karli (12) moves to the Alps, where his parents fulfill their dream of owning a hotel. Instead of vacation, Karli grudgingly helps his parents scrape off old wallpaper. Then he discovers that he can travel through time with the old elevator – to the year 1938! There, Karli befriends the lively Jewish girl Hannah and the shoeshiner Georg. In the present, Karli gradually confronts the shadow of National Socialism that looms over the world of his new friends.
Category: Elements +10 Tag: Competition
Norbert Lechner, a German director and producer born in Munich in 1961, founded his film production company Kevin Lee Filmgesellschaft mbH in 1990. His films have been released worldwide and won numerous awards.
His directorial filmography includes: the short film BAUCHWUNDE (1985), the feature film WOUNDED FACES (1991), the documentary DIE SCHARFEN VERFÜHRER (1996), the children’s film TONI GOLDWASCHER (2007), TOM AND HACK (2012), FORTUNE FAVORS THE BRAVE (2015), and the feature film THE WALL BETWEEN US (2019). His most recent work is THE SECRET FLOOR (2024).
Director's Note
As we lose the last contemporary witnesses, the Third Reich is turning from a shared living
memory into history. And it is certainly no coincidence that radical right-wing currents are
suddenly gaining popularity again throughout Europe as they haven’t for a long time. As the
horrors fade away, right-wing ideas suddenly become acceptable again.
This makes it all the more important to teach today’s children to confront the National
Socialist era and to address tolerance and acceptance of other cultures, ethnicities and
lifestyles at an early age.
But how do we educate our children about this terrible time in Europe and at the same time
protect them from inhumane details?
Our idea: we place a child from today into the time of National Socialism. This approach
enables more than just empathy: Karli makes friends and solves an exciting criminal case.
He fights for his new friends and his convictions and soon he looks at his own life in 2025
with different eyes. We discover the old hotel together with him and get to the bottom of
its mystery.
Karli acts as a kind of probe in our story. With him, we dive into a foreign world and uncover
its secrets piece by piece. In this way, we can discuss a relevant topic in a film without ever
leaving the child’s perspective.
My children’s films are usually preceded by extensive children’s casting. I prefer talented
child actors with little or no film experience. They bring an unbiased liveliness and joy of
acting that “experienced” child actors often lack. We casted about 1500 applicants for THE
SECRET FLOOR and found some extraordinarily gifted young talents, Annika Benzin and
Silas John, Maximilian Reinwald and Konstantin Horn.
One year before shooting I started rehearsals with the children, and the adult actors joined
them from time to time. This gave the child actors the experience of working at eye level
with the professionals and they gained confidence in their roles. During the rehearsals, we
watched films, talked to contemporary witnesses, to help the actors learn about the time
and the world in which our story was set. We used improvisations to enable the child actors
to find their way into their characters and emotions.