A Summer of Hurdles Overcome

Berlin's Westhafen does not yet feel quite like a home port. Michelle had previously associated such an unconventional life with people like the Kelly Family, but she did want to let her child grow up in a perfectly normal way — and besides, she comes from Lüdenscheid, where people are down-to-earth, and her beloved Bavaria is also far away. The houseboat makes unfamiliar noises in the night, but Michelle has no fear of winter on the water. She got to know her boat last winter and feels that the ice all around makes winter so vivid, romantic and somehow sensual. She is still practising her love for the new surroundings. Here she can relax and switch off on the water; she wants to build a yoga lounge on deck, she likes her neighbours, the swans, and at the front, by the entrance to the mooring, she will set up the elephant from LILIANE SUSEWIND. Then everyone will know at once who lives here, for her husband is the writer and director Joachim Masannek. It was a summer of challenges. During the filming of LILIANE SUSEWIND, Michelle was separated for many weeks from her husband, who shot the film in Aachen, while she filmed VENUS IM VIERTEN HAUS in Munich, until she too joined him in Aachen. Now the film family has to settle down; their daughter has just started school. In Berlin Mitte, at an international school with many nationalities, where the atmosphere is warm and cosmopolitan. Minimalist living is the order of the day now. You gain an eye for the essentials when you have a crazy husband who suddenly plonks you on a houseboat. Much of what had accumulated over 10 years in the Munich house was thrown out; Michelle spent half a year decluttering — too much of what you don't really need can weigh you down. She experiences the people here as very open. Berlin is more hippie than Munich. Her grandmother in Lüdenscheid used to say that all people are equal. That is, of course, a pretty dream, but at least here in Berlin the homeless are part of public life, whereas in Munich poverty is glossed over and hidden. Yesterday she saw a man on the underground playing the flute and saying thank you, even though he had received hardly any money. In Bavaria, making music on public transport is forbidden.