“It was our aim to make the film in the way that Johanna Spyri would have wanted it made for modern times. If she could see it today, she would say: ‘Just like this.”

You will be hard pressed to find anyone who does not have special associations and memories connected to “Heidi”. Some will be immediately reminded of the song by Gitti and Erika, who accompanied the broadcast of the Japanese series from animation giant Hayao Miyazaki in the seventies: “Deine Welt sind die Berge!

Director Alain Gsponer talks about bringing Heidi to the big screen

” Some will think of Shirley Temple, others of the Swiss adaptation from the fifties, which is seen as one of the classics of post-war German cinema. Some will have immediate associations with an untouched mountain idyll.

Or names like Peter, Almöhi or Fräulein Rottenmeier will go through your head. And others will remember with fascination the timeless novels by Johanna Spyri, who brought “Heidi” to life in the second half of the 19th century.

This multitude of different ideas is, of course, a curse in a way: everyone has their own opinion of Heidi.

On the other hand, the high recognition factor is a blessing: you do not have to explain to anyone who or what “Heidi” is; the story is timeless and the themes have lost none of their topicality.

Which is also the main reason why the adventures of the Swiss orphan girl, who is torn away from the mountains of Grisons and sent to a bourgeois household in Frankfurt, can be retold again and again. Reto Schaerli and Lukas Hobi of the Zurich production company Zodiac Pictures started occupying themselves with the legendary story seven years ago.

“Like many Swiss people, I know the story of ‘Heidi’ very well, but I had never read the books before”, admits Lukas Hobi. “Our generation is more familiar with the story from the animes and the films. After I read the novels,

I completely fell in love with them. I had the impression that I had not seen what I had just been reading in the films at all. This discovery was the moment the project was born.” And Reto Schaerli adds: “We Swiss differentiate between Swiss adaptations and those that were not made in Switzerland. The scenery in which the story is set is incredibly important to us. And the society and the poverty of Switzerland as described by Spyri have something very local about them, as universal as the story is. The last classic Swiss adaptation was made a long time ago. It was created at the beginning of the fifties and was filmed in black and white. So we did not have the feeling that there had already been several adaptations.”

But Schaerli also concedes: “But we do have to ask ourselves the question of how we can distinguish this project from all the others. We discussed this question in great depth with screenwriter Petra Volpe, who was involved in the project right from the start and had a big influence on the vision of the film. Our common approach became clear quickly, and it was basically pretty banal: we wanted to try and do justice to the novels. What that meant for us was modernising the parts that were, in the books, shaped by the times, but in the spirit of Spyri.”

And Lukas Hobi says: “It was our aim to make the film in the way that Johanna Spyri would have wanted it made for modern times. If she could see it today, she would say: ‘Just like this.

No different’. This is our wish.” In this way the new HEIDI film differs from the original “Heidi” films from Switzerland, according to Schaerli: “The first Swiss adaptation from 1952 is very heavily influenced by the post-war era and how Switzerland viewed other countries.

This moved it away from the novel on this level.

Spyri was much more ambivalent. She also gave the children a lot of credit; her characters are full of emotional force. She described the characters and the time very seriously. There is virtually no trace of this in any contemporary German-language children’s films. We wanted to stick close to the novel considering all the aspects we have mentioned. In this way we pursued a very simple and clear concept with which we could always orientate ourselves towards the novel.”

The Adaptation Of The Novels:  Petra Volpe and Alain Gsponer come on board

Petra Volpe started writing in early 2009.

Screenwriter Petra Volpe talks about adapting Heidi for the big screen

Studying the Johanna Spyri originals was essential to working on the material. “At first, we took both novels – ‘Heidi’s Lehr- und Wanderjahre’ from 1879 and ‘Heidi kann brauchen was es gelernt hat’ from 1880 – as the basis for the film”, Hobi remembers. “Then we found the character of Heidi, this wild, maladjusted girl, incredibly interesting. And we did not lose sight of this when choosing the cast.

Johanna Spyri: a writer ahead of her time

We didn’t want a cute, sweet child, but a wild child. Heidi is a girl with a unique character who resists structures and hierarchies.”

At this point, Claussen+Putz came on board as German co-production partners. They had already had dealings and experiences with each other when cooperating on Das kleine Gespenst (2013), and realised that they were pulling in the same direction. Hobi says: “We realised very quickly that HEIDI could not be financed from Switzerland alone, because the Swiss market is too small and our possible sponsors would therefore also be too small. So we looked for a solution for presenting the film internationally without losing control.”

When Claussen thinks of “Heidi”, he thinks above all of the 1952 Swiss adaptation that has endured to this day: “The makers of this adaptation made an effort to stay as close to the original by Johanna Spyri as possible and take it as seriously as they could. It is not for nothing that the material has become a firmly established family (especially young family) classic over the decades that people like to remember or share with their children. And that also became our desire. So we had to ask ourselves: How do we create a 21st-century classic?”

His partner Uli Putz adds: “We always take the adaptation of literary classics seriously anyway, on principle.

It is a joy to produce a film that will be seen for a long time to come and has the potential to become a classic in its own right. Jakob and I are not afraid to take on this task and remain as true to the original as possible.

And there is great satisfaction when we have achieved it. It is, of course, extremely difficult with HEIDI to fulfil audiences’ expectations because these vary to such a great extent.”

And indeed, Jakob Claussen definitely had his doubts at first because he was of the opinion that there was so much that could go wrong with an adaptation. But at the same time he was drawn to the material. “I always thought the idea of a remake was brilliant”, he says. “There are so few myths in the world that have been established in so many generations and are so universally known as ‘Heidi’. The more we got into Spyri’s novels, the more we realised why this story is so timeless. Because it really is archetypically about emotions and relationship patterns that affect people today as much as they did then. It is about home, friendship, the family, love, and the independence even of very young people. It is about big, big emotions, loyalties and family belonging. All these themes are just as relevant nowadays as they were 100 years ago.”

The jobs in hand were also delegated in a fair way. “To an extent, we divided up the shooting according to territory. Lukas and Reto were much more present at the Swiss shooting and Uli and I took more responsibility with the shooting in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The worldwide rights – apart from Switzerland – belong to STUDIOCANAL. They were so enthusiastic about the project there that they also wanted to assume responsibility for world distribution. That was wonderful for us because we have been able to concentrate so much more on our work.”

After shooting had already started, they started looking for a suitable director. “Alain Gsponer was the best choice”, says Reto Schaerli, “because he had proved himself in the children’s and family genre with Das kleine Gespenst and we had had a good experience with him during our cooperation. But he was also the best choice because he manages a difficult balancing act: he is a very content-orientated director with a high degree of sensitivity who produces the stories very precisely, works very precisely with the actors and is very demanding.

At the same time, he is also very skilled technically. This was very important for the material. We had to work with laypeople and animals but also with experienced actors, we had to work high in the mountains and react flexibly to the weather, which played a fair few tricks on us. Alain had to carry and give life to the spirit conveyed in the screenplay and the composure that comes from our author Petra Volpe. He did it very, very well.”

Jakob Claussen adds: “Alain is a very fine, meticulous and special partner. He did not take the decision likely either. We have always taken his thoughts very seriously and tried to overcome any doubts together with him. Alain also had some additional, seriously emotional thoughts on account of his family background as a Swiss man by birth that we as Germans had not considered at all. Because you really have to realise that ‘Heidi’ is the Number One cultural asset in Switzerland. It is the biggest brand Switzerland has to offer and the whole world is interested in ‘Heidi’. So for this reason the adaptation was a very unique and special challenge for Alain.”

The production team landed a real coup with legendary Swiss actor Bruno Ganz playing Almöhi.

Bruno Ganz was happy that the preparation for playing the role of Almöhi also had a very physical side: “In order to play Almöhi you have to become a mountain farmer: milk goats, cut logs in the old-fashioned way and scythe grass on the steep slopes. All physical stuff – I like that.

I was often sent to the country as a child and I know where the milk comes from; but it is something completely different on the Alp.”

The renowned actor says about “Heidi”: “‘Heidi’ is a national myth. It is nice that Switzerland is not only known for products like chocolate and cheese or more dubious things like banking. We are also known for having something like this little girl seven thousand feet up in the mountains who loves goats and the outdoors. Heidi is a heroine. An incredible little person. She is so resistant and is frightened of nothing. It is so wonderful the way she pulls herself up on the smallest things. She is a girl that cannot be broken. That’s something children admire.”

Bruno Ganz also has an explanation for the timelessness of the material: “Johanna Spyri hit upon a few central points in ‘Heidi’ that clearly move people in very different parts of the world. It is basically the search for a home, an identity, or to put it in a more modern way, the search for a place where you can be yourself and where you like to be, a place where you can find

Bruno Ganz was happy that the preparation for playing the role of Almöhi also had a very physical side: “In order to play Almöhi you have to become a mountain farmer: milk goats, cut logs in the old-fashioned way and scythe grass on the steep slopes. All physical stuff – I like that. I was often sent to the country as a child and I know where the milk comes from; but it is something completely different on the Alp.”

The renowned actor says about “Heidi”: “‘Heidi’ is a national myth. It is nice that Switzerland is not only known for products like chocolate and cheese or more dubious things like banking. We are also known for having something like this little girl seven thousand feet up in the mountains who loves goats and the outdoors. Heidi is a heroine. An incredible little person. She is so resistant and is frightened of nothing. It is so wonderful the way she pulls herself up on the smallest things. She is a girl that cannot be broken. That’s something children admire.”

Bruno Ganz also has an explanation for the timelessness of the material: “Johanna Spyri hit upon a few central points in ‘Heidi’ that clearly move people in very different parts of the world. It is basically the search for a home, an identity, or to put it in a more modern way, the search for a place where you can be yourself and where you like to be, a place where you can find fulfilment.”

“‘Heidi’ is a national treasure in Switzerland”, says producer Reto Schaerli. “She is Switzerland’s Pippi Longstocking. Everyone knows her. But ‘Heidi’ is also a massive trend all over the world. After the Bible and the Communist Manifesto, Spyri’s book is still the most translated book in the world – and, of course, the most successful children’s book in the world. To that extent we are hoping for widespread interest.”

“HEIDI is a family film in the truest sense of the word”, finds Jakob Claussen. “The fact that the material is historical is not an exclusion criterion: it is something that makes our film even more interesting. HEIDI is a European cultural asset.”

“Of course we want many, many people to see the film”, says Lukas Hobi. “And we want cinemagoers not just to see a nice and entertaining story but also to understand the core of the story, which is very touching and moving with its eponymous character, who has an incredible influence on her surroundings.

What we want is for this force to reach the audience and give them a positive experience so that they register the depth and value of the film.”

His partner Reto Schaerli concludes: “I want it to be one of those films that people have something to talk about. About Switzerland then and now, about this child and what happens to her, about home and family… There are a lot of themes I think the film carries with it. I want this movie experience to entertain and provoke thought.

And I want people to feel like going hiking. Because that’s how I feel when I see the film.”