‘Momo’: Writer-Director Christian Ditter & Producer Christian Becker On Bringing English-Language Adaptation Of Classic Michael Ende Novel To The Big Screen — Cannes Market

Diana Lodderhose
·5 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: As the Cannes market kicks into gear, leading German producer Christian Becker, How to Be Single bilingual writer-director Christian Ditter and international sales agent Rocket Science are landing on the Croisette with Momo, one of their most ambitious projects to date.

The big-budget project, which is currently filming in Croatia, is the English-language adaptation of one of Michael Ende’s most beloved fantasy novels. Most will be familiar with Ende as the writer of The Neverending Story, which was adapted for the big screen in 1984 and became a cult classic in the U.S. and internationally (that title is currently getting a big new screen adaptation with See-Saw Films). But Momo is one of the German novelist’s most beloved stories, especially in Europe, and has been translated into more than 50 languages and has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide.

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The story focuses on Momo (played by A Gentleman in Moscow’s Alexa Goodall), a young orphan girl of mysterious origin, who lives in the ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre and becomes friends with everybody in the neighborhood. But, when a powerful international corporation (known as The Greys) starts stealing everybody’s time, nobody has any time left for her, let alone their friends or families. Momo, together with Master Hora (played by Martin Freeman), the custodian of time, are the only ones who can go up against the time thieves before all is lost forever.

In addition to Goodall and Freeman, the main cast comprises of Araloyin Oshunremi (Top Boy, Heartstopper), Kim Bodnia (Killing Eve, The Witcher), Claes Bang (The Square), Laura Haddock (The Recruit), Jennifer Amaka Pettersson (The Sandhamn Murders) and David Schütter (Charlie’s Angels).

It’s a project that both Becker and Ditter have been courting for many years, finally managing to disentangle the rights from Ende’s estate and other stakeholders such as Beta Film, which had earlier owned the remake rights to the only previous film adaptation – a 1986 version which featured John Huston.

“It was not an option not to get the rights,” says The Wave and Fack Ju, Goethe producer Becker, who is producing via his Rat Pack banner, a subsidiary of Germany’s Constantin Film (Constantin is co-producing and distributing in German-speaking territories). “Twenty years ago, we optioned Michael Ende’s book Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver from the Ende estate, which ultimately began a good relationship for us with the estate, which is handled by Roman Hocke and Dr. Wolf-Dieter von Gronau.”

For Ditter, Momo was his “favorite” book as a child. “It’s the kind of movie I have always wanted to make but I also think I just wasn’t ready before now,” the writer-director tells Deadline via Zoom from the set of the film. “It’s definitely the biggest movie I’ve ever worked on in terms of ensemble, sets and the amount of VFX shots, but at its heart it’s a very personal movie.”

He adds: “I feel like I needed to make films like Love Rosie or How to Be Single or projects with set pieces such as Biohackers to have the toolbelt to handle this kind of movie.”

Alexa Goodall as ‘Momo’ with writer-director Christian Ditter
Alexa Goodall as ‘Momo’ with writer-director Christian Ditter

Written more than 50 years ago, Ende’s novel was a story that explored how time was being used by modern societies, with The Greys representing a group that set out to steal time from humans. “It was a metaphor for banking,” says Ditter. “But obviously the world has changed now and the most valuable to commodity is time rather than money and all the big corporations in the world are after our time. So, it was quite a prophecy that Michael wrote this so long ago. The biggest change from the novel that our film will acknowledge is that we live in a world where now this is a reality.”

He continues: “Momo is a person who brings people together just by listening. She hears them but they also start healing each other.”

Ditter stresses that the film isn’t preachy and that “there is no right or wrong answer of how to spend your time.”

“I think it’s a very individual choice for everybody,” he says. “But you should spend it in a way that is right for you, rather than what society says you should do and that is the big theme we are focusing on.”

The film is shooting in Croatia and Slovenia and this, says Becker, was a conscious decision so as not to localize the film and rather make the production “as grounded as possible.”

“Even though there are these huge fantasy worlds, we’re not doing them in front of green screens or LED screens – we’re doing them on locations.” VFX shots, he says, will be used as “additions in the backgrounds.”

Indeed, there has been a gap in the market with big family films coming into the independent film arena, but Ditter and Becker feel that the time is right for this project to resonate with global audiences. One other big family film coming to market in Cannes this year is Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy starrer The Magic Faraway Tree, which Palisades Park Pictures is also selling on the Croisette this year.

“Momo is Michael Ende’s most successful book and while The Neverending Story was a really big movie at the time, I personally think Momo is his best book,” says Ditter. “And it’s definitely more relevant today so I have no concerns whatsoever that this will connect with audiences everywhere.”

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