Two To One | Sandra Hüller heist comedy gets UK cinema release

Tull Stories is delighted to share the new UK poster and trailer for Natja Brunckhorst’s Two To One (Zwei Zu Eins). Following its UK Premiere at Glasgow Film Festival, where it was voted runner up in the Audience Award, Two To One will be in UK cinemas from 2nd May.

A light-hearted ensemble comedy about friendship, community, love and capitalism, Natja Brunckhorst’s Two To One is set in the long, hot East German summer of 1990.

Maren (Sandra Hüller), Robert (Max Riemelt) and Volker (Ronald Zehrfeld) have known and loved each other since childhood. In the final weeks before reunification and with Germany about to change forever, the trio stumble across a fortune in soon-to-be-worthless East German currency, left to rot in Government storage.

With just days to work out what to do with this unexpected windfall before it becomes useless, the three assemble the friends and neighbours living in their crumbling apartment block and together hatch an elaborate plan to exchange the cash for goods – outwitting the incoming Westerners and their capitalism before time runs out.

But can a community previously living under strict socialist values handle this sudden wealth…?

Two To One features stand-out performances from Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest, Toni Erdmann), Max Riemelt (Berlin Syndrome, Sense8,) and Ronald Zehrfeld (Phoenix, Barbara).

The film was produced by Row Pictures and Zischlermann Filmproduktion, in co-production with ZDF and in cooperation with Arte and Lichtblick Film- und Fernsehproduktion. Two To One will be released in the UK with support from the German Films Distribution Support funding program.

Watch trailer here:

Capturing the authenticity of 1990s East Germany had a huge influence on the production of Two To One, from visual representation in clothing and locations to having a fully East German cast. Speaking on this, director Natja Brunckhorst commented “I didn’t want to use clichés, not even visually, but I wanted to explore authenticity. We only used clothes from the period, and for filming we decided: No jokes about clothes! We didn’t want to make fun of anyone and avoid anyone making fun of someone else just because of what they were wearing. And that worked very well. Everyone looks good in what they wear because they are our heroes. And there’s a lot of light blue in the film – for me that also represents lightness.

Martin Langer, our cameraman, worked with anamorphic lenses and this resulted in lens flares here and there, which further reinforce the impression of heat. It was actually warm, but we wanted it to look that way. We shot the film at an imaginary outside temperature of 36 degrees, so to speak, and thought a lot about what constitutes the summer atmosphere.

I think it’s a film that leaves me in a good mood and still takes something away from it. The great music of our composer Hannah von Hübbenet also helped us. We decided not to use any music from that time. I didn’t want to tie the film musically to a time. For me, TWO TO ONE has something archaically timeless about it, and that should also come across in the music. This is how the soundtrack was created, which has a bit of a country, light-footed feel, but also has a good deal of Scandinavian depth.”

A hit with audiences and critics in its recent UK festival run, Natja Brunckhorst spoke about sharing the film to UK cinemas “I’ve always admired the brilliant absurdity of British humour—and Monty Python lit my childhood. So it’s a real privilege to see now our comedy about capitalism and friendship TWO TO ONE opening its UK run on 2nd May… 500,000 Germans laughed about it. Clearly, it’s either comedy gold or hilariously off. Give it a try.”

Two To One is the second film in Tull Stories’ newly-launched Joy of Cinema strand. On creating the unique strand, Tull Stories founder Jonny Tull said “It’s been an utter delight to see how cinemas and audiences have responded to our first international comedy OH MY GOODNESS!, which has been packing cinemas with happy audiences – just as we had hoped. TWO TO ONE is the perfect film to be part of Joy Of Cinema and, based on how it has already been received at Glasgow Film Festival and Borderlines Film Festival this spring, cinemas will once again be full of laughter and good times.”

Two To One will be in UK Cinemas from 2nd May as part of Tull Stories’ Joy of Cinema strand