Talking Toni Erdmann

Sandra Hüller and Peter Simonischek in Maren Ade's Oscar nominated Toni Erdmann

This morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Germany's submission for the 89th Academy Awards, Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann, starring Sandra Hüller and Peter Simonischek, is one of the five Oscar Best Foreign Language Film nominees.

Martin Zandvliet's Land Of Mine, from Denmark; Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman, from Iran; Bentley Dean and Martin Butler's Tanna, from Australia; and from Sweden, Hannes Holm's A Man Called Ove round out the field. Isabelle Huppert, for Paul Verhoeven's Elle (France's submission), received a Best Lead Actress nomination. Switzerland's My Life As A Courgette, directed by Claude Barras, received a Best Animated Feature nomination.

Sandra Hüller on Ines Conradi: "She should be a boss."

Filming Toni Erdmann in Romania, connecting Frauke Finsterwalder's Finsterworld to King Kong, and what it means to be human are revealed in my conversation with Maren Ade and Sandra Hüller.

On December 15, 2016, the Best Foreign Language Film shortlist of nine was revealed. A record total of 89 countries submitted a feature film to the Academy for consideration before the October 3, 2016 deadline, 85 were accepted.

Ines Conradi (Hüller) is a successful business consultant stationed in Bucharest with her eyes on a promotion to Singapore. Her father Winfried (Simonischek) gets to see her too little and after Willy, his dog, dies, decides on a surprise visit.

This doesn't go very well and so Toni Erdmann, Winfried's alter ego, sporting false teeth ("my crowns are so boring") and a wig, enters the picture. Erdmann, the catalyst, infiltrates the hierarchies, Ines painstakingly tries to function in and reveals the madness of it all. Maren Ade with laugh-out-loud humor and rib-tickling care gives permission to ask what it means to be human.

Anne-Katrin Titze: "Are you really human?" is a central question [in Toni Erdmann]. And then a few scenes later she [Ines] is being told by someone else, as a compliment, "You are an animal." That balance of what it means to be human - while making this film, I know this sounds a bit stupid, but were there some shifts for you in regards to this question during the filming? Along the lines of - I am really learning something about myself?

Peter Simonischek as Toni Erdmann

Sandra Hüller: Yeah. I always do when I work. That's why I do it, actually. I learned a lot from Ines. I like the way she is putting away things that she doesn't need, you know? That's something that I observed very closely, for example.

Maren Ade: In that sense, I really have to say, I hate filmmaking sometimes. Because it's such a double standard sometimes, because you make a film about the country and values and, I don't know. And I know what I'm thinking about with the film but I also don't call my parents, I walk by the children who sleep on the street [in Bucharest] in order to go to my hotel.

A film set is also something very capitalistic, sometimes. There are so many hierarchies and so much money involved. For me, sure, I searched for something. Doing a film is more a search for me or shows more what I was reflecting on through these years.

AKT: You are starting a trend of being typecast in starring opposite someone with a lot of fur. I am thinking of Finsterworld, where you were terrific. I really loved it. Two films with big furry co-stars. You could do a King Kong remake next.

SH: It's just two. But it's true. I never thought about it.

Sandra Hüller with Peter Simonischek at the New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

AKT: Is there any similarity between those two women you played?

SH: Yeah, of course. They are both very career fixated. But I think Franziska, the woman from Finsterworld - she's really bad at her job. That's a difference, I guess. She's a really bad …

AKT: … documentary filmmaker.

SH: Yeah. She can't do it. She is just not interested in people. And then she is always complaining about the people and that they don't do what she wants in her films. But why documentary, then?

AKT: Ines is better?

SH: Yeah, she's really good at her job. I think so, yes. She should be a boss.

AKT: The torturousness of this kind of business world is so well placed. You really get to ask what kind of world we are living in. It's international. I loved that you placed it in Romania. And the way Romania enters the picture with a little boy selling tissues on the street. Was that balance difficult to achieve? How much of the surrounding city do you really show?

MA: I wanted it to be as I experienced it. To become normal in a way. To have the perspective of the experts who live there. That it became also a routine. They got used to it. And that scene when we were filming down, that was really the view out of that window. And I decided spontaneously.

Toni Erdmann poster - Lincoln Plaza Cinemas Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

AKT: That shanty town?

MA: Yeah, when they look down onto the hut. This was something where I thought, no, let's film this. It's interesting because it's there. I think I wouldn't have searched for something like that. And I'm happy that it was like that.

AKT: When I arrived downstairs, in this hotel [on Park Avenue], in this neighbourhood, I looked at the people, the businessmen. I was sitting in the lobby for a moment, thinking about my questions for you and then a man came up to me and I jumped, because I didn't see him. For a second I thought Toni Erdmann was here, but the man just wanted to know if Chinatown was uptown or downtown.

Read what Maren Ade and Sandra Hüller had to say on costumes, hierarchies, double standards, Rilke and a dress.

Read Maren Ade and Sandra Hüller on the influence of Andy Kaufman's Tony Clifton character, meerkats (not from Ang Lee's Life Of Pi), what's in a name, and creating a space.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebration takes place on February 26, 2017.