A Note on the Title
Going Private (Nachbeben, literally «aftershock») is a film that metaphorically describes the shock following an initial, seemingly well-mastered tremor. The film is centered around the private sphere of a banker who, after the stock-market crash at the turn of the millennium, is now experiencing a second shock, one that threatens to break apart the secure world he has built up for himself.

It was not my intention to view the psychological breakdown of this family as a given or 'natural' phenomenon. On the contrary: I wanted to examine what happens when men take their work home with them, especially their knack for 'dealing', and introduce it into their private spheres.		    
  The Backstory
For a couple of years, until the economic crash in 2001, I was working on a script dealing with life in the financial sector. Although I had completed the script, the project failed to secure the necessary financial backing to go into production.

The script told the epic tale of the rise and fall of a young, simple, second-generation immigrant who becomes a brilliant broker. The development of the international stock market, from the brokers' pit to the electronic trading centre, where derivatives (futures and options) are displayed on screens and traded globally, provided the backdrop to that script.

Working as a 'back-office girl' in a large private bank in Zurich, I was able to do all the research necessary for the project. I was exposed to the men who worked there, often obsessive, manic characters, and I soon recognised the erotic side of the money-market business. Additionally, I was able to observe the relations between the sexes in an environment dominated by and large by men.

The crash of the stock market in 2001 made it impossible to finance the script: nobody wanted to be reminded of the losses that were omnipresent and painful. I was now confronted with the choice of abandoning the project, and with it, years of meticulously gathered material, or finding an alternative way to begin a new project.

The starting point for Going Private (Nachbeben) was absolutely clear to me: just as the financiers were unwilling to back a project that mirrored their own losses, my characters would suppress the memories of their defeats, cover up their losses and continue as if nothing had happened. It was here that I saw the dramatic potential of this new project: the characters, regardless of the state of the Dow Jones Index, would remain themselves; their history was their reality, whether they acknowledged it or not...		    
  Notes on Making Going Private (Nachbeben)
Starting from where I had left off, I decided to take over and adapt the existing characters (including their biographies) from my last script, in their entirety, into a story that would take place in one sole location over the course of a single day. The au pair, Birthe, is the only new character in the story. The delightful aspect of her character is that it is alien to the world she is thrown into. Where at first Birthe's anti-globalisation ideals seem pleasantly refreshing, however, she too is ultimately forced into a whirlpool of corruption. With this idea and my notes I approached Petra Lüschow, who then wrote a treatment.

After the experience of directing a 90-minute television film («Meier Marilyn»), I was determined to implement a new, unrestricted method of filmmaking. Indeed, due to the unity of time and space in which the story takes place, I enjoyed near theatre-like conditions while shooting this film.

Additionally, I insisted on working with the best theatre actors in Switzerland, actors whose personalities would be a source of inspiration to me. By beginning to work with them as early as possible, I managed to involve them in the creative process from the start, allowing them to contribute to the dramatic development of the story. The actors were delighted by both the theme and the working method I had suggested, and I was thus able to spend time rehearsing with them a year before starting principal photography. The ten days of improvisation, which were carefully documented by our cameraman Piotr Jaxa, allowed us to create a visual style that corresponded to our working method: recording the rhythm of the actors to then direct them further with an independent, searching camera. Not only the actors observe and cast suspicion on one another, the camera also picks up on their observations and quests for an alternative emphasis, often far removed from the actual central point of the scene. The tapes were given to Petra Lüschow, the author, who then incorporated what seemed useful into the script.

I insisted that the project proceed by means of trial and error, a method I continued to use once principal photography started. In this manner, takes of the same scene often resulted in completely different endings, while other scenes were left strictly as intended.

Some of the more massive interventions had technical consequences, with additional pick-ups and transitions needing to be shot. Due to the fact that everything took place in one location, however, this did not prove to be a severe inconvenience: all we needed was an actor on-set and the weather playing along.

Last but not least, I should mention the editing process. Isabel Meier, our editor, was brought in right from the start, which meant that she was able to see the rushes on a daily basis, and was thus able to give me invaluable feedback. She pushed and encouraged us in a creative way, reminding us of the unique freedom we had on this set.

Once shooting had ended, a new creative phase began in the editing suite dealing with the abundance of material shot: after numerous rough edits we spent a few more months perfecting and tweaking the dramatic turn of the story.