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Fritzi Haberlandt: An actress with Jakarta on her mind
(JP/Don)When German actress Fritzi Haberlandt was offered a trip to Indonesia as part of the 2014 German Cinema Festival, she said yes there and then
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(JP/Don)
When German actress Fritzi Haberlandt was offered a trip to Indonesia as part of the 2014 German Cinema Festival, she said yes there and then.
'Growing up, I know paradise exists and its name is Indonesia,' Haberlandt told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.
She was invited by the German cultural center, the Goethe Institute, for a tour in Indonesia as part of the festival's program. One of her films, Fenster zum Sommer (Summer Window), in which she shares the screen with fellow German actress Nina Hoss, has been screened throughout the festival.
'Of course I wanted to come to Jakarta. I had to. [The city] is my roots; this is where my grandmother was born,' said the 39-year-old actress.
Haberlandt said that she was overwhelmed by the experience of visiting Jakarta. 'I still can't believe I'm here,' she said.
Jakarta is a special place for Haberlandt and her family. In the 1910s, her great-grandparents emigrated from Germany to Batavia ' Jakarta's name during the Dutch colonial era, seeking their fortune.
Her grandmother was born in the city, but the family was uprooted from their new life when World War II started. 'If it hadn't been for the war, my family would have continued living in Indonesia. My grandmother was 16 when she left Batavia,' Haberlandt said.
After becoming prisoners of war in Japan, the family arrived in what was then East Germany. 'You can imagine my grandmother's experience, forced to leave the good life in a beautiful land and having to begin a new one in a war-torn foreign country,' she said.
Haberlandt grew up with tales and tastes of the tropical land.
'My grandmother, as well as my mother and aunts, often cook Indonesian food. On the dinner table, the table mats were all batik. She would show old pictures of Batavia. The place is always in our mind,' she said.
While members of the family have always wanted to visit Indonesia, restrictions imposed under the East German government and expensive travel costs hindered them.
'My family was very surprised and shocked when I told them the news. Jakarta is a very special place for all of us; we all want to go here. I'm the first in my family to be able to set foot again in Jakarta after all these years,' she said.
Haberlandt said that her grandmother, who is now 92, had an influx of memories after she told her the good news.
'She has been calling me every day. She has started remembering all these Malay words and told me of food that I have to try here. She also told me to visit her old school, a business street and the house where she was born. I only have the Dutch name of the streets,' Haberlandt said.
Haberlandt was in Jakarta for two days before going on tour with the film festival to Yogyakarta and Surakarta, Central Java.
It was not known at press time if she was able to visit the sites recommended by her grandmother: Santa Ursula High School, the business district of Pasar Baru and the old house.
Haberlandt, who was born in 1975 in East Berlin, did not originally want to be an actress. 'As a child I had no idea what acting was, because no one in my family had something to do with it. But when I was 15 or 16, I acted in a school theater. It was then I found that it was what I really liked. My teacher also encouraged me to pursue it.'
A frequent patron of the theater, Haberlandt said that she fell in love with acting and decide to pursue a career by entering the prestigious Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin.
She made her professional bow while still a student in 1997 in Robert Wilson's play Saints and Singing at the Berliner Ensemble.
'Back then I never thought about acting in film, I thought of myself as a theater actress,' Haberlandt said. However, as talent scouts combed the theater scene, she received offers to play in movies and has taken film work since 1998.
'It was hard to adapt to film acting, I was criticized at first for making huge movements and expressions ' the way acting in theater is done. I had to learn film acting on the set by myself,' she said.
Haberlandt took her first lead role in the film adaption of Kalt ist der Abendhauch (Cold is the Evening Breeze), by Rainer Kaufmann, in 2000, for which she received the Bavarian Film Award for Best Young Actress.
In 2004, she received the German Film Award for Best Supporting Actress, the equivalent of an Oscar, for her performance in Liegen Lernen (Learning to Lie).
Haberlandt said that she tried to avoid being typecast, although she received many offers for serious roles. 'In this matter, I like playing in theater more. because you can play everything in theater. You get to experiment much more.'
For more information on the festival, visit goethe.de/germancinema.
