IN Magazine talked with the Sad Jokes writer, director, and actor as his film made its TIFF premiere…
Multi-hyphenate talent Fabian Stumm has made waves in his native Germany with his newest film, Sad Jokes. Winning Best Director at the 2024 Munich Film Fest, the out performer premiered the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival to thunderous applause from the TIFF audience. Stumm stars in the Berlin-set Sad Jokes as Joseph, a co-parent to son Pino (played by his real-life son Justus) who navigates gay dating and co-parenting while attempting to create a work-life balance.
Things go haywire for Joseph quickly in Sad Jokes as his best friend and fellow co-parent Sonya (Haley Louise Jokes) struggles with depression and gets checked into a clinic. Joseph’s world is thrown upside down instantly, with elements of Stumm’s real life making their way into the art presented on the screen. The film is a series of vignettes that includes a documentary-style interview of people breaking the fourth wall by delivering jokes straight to the camera.
IN Magazine had the opportunity to talk to Stumm just after the film premiered at TIFF to get his insight on the experience of making such a personal movie and what modern gay dating is like for a single father.
How are you feeling now that Sad Jokes just premiered at TIFF and a whole new set of audiences have seen the film?
It is quite a relief, to be honest. We had our world premiere at the Munich Film Festival two months ago, and it’s a German festival, obviously. It was really well received there. I was a little bit nervous about the international audience, because it’s such a language-based film, but it seemed to be going really well. There was laughter at exactly the right places.
It’s always nice when there’s laughter in exactly the right place.
It’s very liberating.
Fabian, you direct, you wrote, you star, and you produced “Sad Jokes,” not to mention your real-life son plays your son in the film, whom you co-parent with your friend Susie in real-life. Is it safe to say that this film is a personal one for you, and why did you decide to tell this story?
Yeah, it is a personal story. It’s not really an autobiographical story that much because, like you mentioned, that element is part of my real life. I’m a director, I am in the film, but that’s about it, I would say. It was really important for me because that is such a big part of my private life, and it’s something that I rarely see portrayed on film: friendship-based parenthood. In my life, that’s a big thing. Iin Berlin, I know a few people who have the same setup. I felt like it’s maybe nice to tell the story about that and have it not so much explained on screen, but more presented and shown as it is.
Your character, Joseph, is at a crossroads in his life…juggling parenting, creative work endeavors, and dating in a unique way. How do you view modern gay relationships today while bouncing from parenting and a work-life balance?
Oh, my goodness. I think I don’t know any more about it than you. I’m also sometimes at a loss. I always aspire to date in a really casual way, before it becomes more serious. The older I get, I feel like it becomes a little bit more difficult. I think ageism is sometimes even a thing. I’m in my early 40s, and I feel like a 30-year-old most of the time. Sometimes it’s a bit weird that the gay dating scene doesn’t match my age so there can be quite a struggle, I think.
There are a lot of jokes thrown into this movie, both “sad” as the title suggests…but also some that I would have told to my friends when I was younger. How did you balance the humor with the drama in this movie, and why present some jokes in a straight-to-camera manner as if it’s filmed like a documentary?
I kind of was looking for a way into the story. The intro about the jokes, that was added later on, while I was already almost finished with the script. I liked the idea of having it very literal, like taking the title Sad Jokes and then having people showing what the tone of the film would be. Telling jokes that are sad, and then realizing it’s not really sad, it’s more silly. It’s the tonal juggling of those things. I kind of enjoy it, and I like the fact that it feels a little bit documentarian because it’s a behind the scenes situation with people addressing the camera and then you get thrown into a fictional story. For me when I’m part of an audience, I like to be kept on my toes, like I enjoy not having everything explained in the first scene. I like the idea that people have to put the pieces together on their own.
Did you ever watch the first season of Sex and the City by chance?
I did but I was very young.
The opening of Sad Jokes reminded me a little of that show, where people talk directly to the camera, interviewing real people. For whatever reason, the movie initially reminded me of that.
It’s a nice image.
Can you share any specific techniques or strategies you used to overcome obstacles during the filming process?
I shot this film quite fast after my debut film, which I shot almost a year before, and then it came out quite quickly. We opened at the Berlin Film Festival and got a really nice award, and it got quite a big, nice reception. So I felt eager to just keep on working, you know. I felt the doors opening, we just went ahead and did it with my team. But I had a lot of people advising me against it, like I had a lot of people telling me that the second film is so important. If that doesn’t stick and doesn’t work, then you’re out of the picture again. It felt like I got what they meant. But it felt weird to me because, if I have the urge to work, then I should just go ahead and do it. I think art is not about calculating the timing. It’s just something that you want to talk about and then do it. So that was a little bit difficult to block out the noise of people scaring me a little bit with that to really be free and open and focused on the work that I wanted to do.
Looking back on Sad Jokes, what are you most proud of? Is there anything you would have done differently?
I think I’m most proud of my team, to be honest. I think, for example, the cast of actors and actresses. I think they’re so wonderful in the film. Today, as I sat in and watched [the premiere], I really feel like no matter where you come from, you can feel some sort of warmth transpiring from the screen. That makes me really happy. That’s obviously the ensemble, the work of all of the people in it, because they really worked hard and they gave a lot, and they were very concentrated and prepared and earned almost no money. So it makes me really proud to think about knowing that the film is well received.
Your character, as I mentioned, struggles a lot with co-parenting, especially because the person that he’s co-parenting with is deeply depressed, and she goes away for a long time. Joseph now has to rebalance his life with his art, with his movie, and with his son. Though this is a fictionalized version of your life, how hard is it for you as a parent to embrace transitioning from your younger self to where you are in your life now? Do you think that your character in the movie embraced the same?
I grew up with a father who was struggling with depression when I was quite young for a few years. So that has always been a big part of my upbringing. I’m very close to my family, also my father, and so I really wanted it to feel true. When I got older, I realized that the struggle was, of course, very strong for my dad, but also for my mom. She had to take on the duties of taking care of the kids, because my father was going to hospitals. Now that I’m a grown man, I think about that a lot actually, the strain for the partner. I felt it was interesting to put myself in those shoes and play it out. I feel very connected to my childhood.
What do you hope audiences take away from Sad Jokes once the credits begin to roll?
I hope that they laugh and that they cry. I hope that they relate to the humanity of it. I think it’s a very small, personal film. But I think if you connect with it, I think it can be very universal. I read a review the other day that said it’s a film that feels like a warm hug after you’ve been crying. That almost makes me cry because that’s the most beautiful image I could think about for a film. So now I can’t get that image out of my head. It’s basically what I aspire to.
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