Everyone lies in the World War I series “Davos 1917.” Mostly because they have to.
“You have war, you have the elite coming together in this one place. You have to watch your step and tread carefully. Everything could be a trap,” says Jan-Eric Mack, who directed alongside Christian Theede and Anca Miruna Lazarescu.
The show focuses on a young nurse Johanna who finds herself surrounded by spies in the Swiss resort town. Desperate to reunite with her illegitimate daughter, she discovers she has a talent for espionage, too.
“I think she always had these skills. She just couldn’t show them in the house she grew up in,” says lead actor Dominique Devenport, also known for “Sisi.”
“She has always been different. And then, suddenly, she gets an opportunity to develop talents she didn’t even know she had. That’s why it’s happening so quickly, in a way. It was already there.”
Led by a countess with a secret (Jeanette Hain), Johanna proves to be a quick learner.
“It’s a relationship you never fully understand. After a while, I realized it would always be different, depending on who would play it. It was all about chemistry and what was happening between us,” says Devenport, with Hain adding:“They could be mother and daughter, they could have a love affair. It could be everything. Ilse tells Johanna you can only survive if you don’t become emotionally attached. But soon, she herself can’t resist these feelings anymore. She needs them.”
“We all have very different facets and it’s wonderful to be able to show that, to jump in the abyss and then come out again. Johanna has a huge heart and Ilse starts noticing it too. People who are full of love can be very powerful.”
Written by Adrian Illien, Julia Penner, Thomas Hess and Michael Sauter, “Davos 1917” was produced by Contrast Film, Letterbox Filmproduktion, Amalia Film, SRF and ARD Degeto. Global Screen handles international distribution. The series will premiere on SRF in Switzerland and air in Germany on ARD at the end of this year.
“It’s a classic story of the student surpassing the master,” adds Mack.
“These characters carry a lot of baggage. They have experienced trauma and it brings them closer somehow. At one point, you could say that Johanna turns into Ilse. What happens between them is never stable.”
Neither is the situation around them, as echoes of war can be heard, and felt, even in quiet Davos.
“It takes a while to get there, you have to brave all that snow and then you realize it’s actually more dangerousinside. There is nowhere to hide. We wanted the audience to sense it. You always feel there is someone else lurking around,” says Mack.
“It’s like ‘The Shining’,” jokes Hain.
But despite the historic setting, the team noticed many similarities to modern times.
“When we were there, right where Thomas Mann was supposed to write ‘The Magic Mountain,’ I felt the heartbeat of decades ago. And yet we have the same fears and desires. It’s really so similar,” says Hain.
“There are still wars in the world. I always thought we would finally learn to communicate with each other one day, but instead, there is all this violence. It’s just going on and on. Maybe one day it will change.”
“As an actor, I can only work with what I have, so some modern aspects will unavoidably make their way into it. We are the people of today, so it will always be there,” notes Devenport. Mack observes:
“You could tell this story in a very modern way and we certainly had these discussions. But most of all, we wanted it to feel real. It feels timely because of many reasons, some of which we didn’t anticipate, but I really believe that as long as the story is good, it doesn’t matter when it takes place,” he says.
“We just follow human emotion.”
