84 minutes of horror without a breather: Home Sweet Home star Nilam Farooq on filming mishaps, Christoph Maria Herbst and exciting German cinema

Isn’t it a calming moment in horror movies when morning breaks and the demonic midnight forces leave the innocent family in the haunted house alone for a few hours? There aren’t any moments like this in the new movie Home Sweet Home – Where Evil Lives. Thomas Sieben’s German shocker with Nilam Farooq (Contra) was shot without a single cut gives the audience no breathing space. It can now be seen in cinemas.

Home Sweet Home star Nilam Farooq in an interview about horror and Christoph Maria Herbst

In Home Sweet Home, Farooq plays the heavily pregnant Maria, who discovers a dark secret from German colonial history in the basement of her country house. In an interview with Moviepilot, the actress revealed what challenges the shoot caused, which film with Christoph Maria Herbst remains her passion project and how Home Sweet Home can make a contribution to German cinema.

Moviepilot: This is your second time playing a major role in a German horror film after Heilstätten. Do you have a special connection to the genre?

Nilam Farooq: No, and I don’t want to give the impression that I only plan to make horror films. It’s a tiring genre to shoot. At [Heilstätten] The challenge was that horror isn’t often allowed to be done in Germany. The appeal of Home Sweet Home was that the film was shot as a one-shot, i.e. 90 minutes at a time.

Was it difficult to shoot continuously in those 90 minutes?

It’s a bit like a theater performance: you start acting and end up in a kind of tunnel. I don’t remember exactly how we shot individual scenes and I don’t remember which take we used in the end. The location is real and everything that is played is real. As soon as you can block out that one cameraman, you’re in the situation. That’s what made it unique. But something technical remains: I had certain running lines and had to remember certain things. I couldn’t improvise.

How many takes did you have to shoot? Were there any frustrating moments?

We shot three runs. The film starts at dusk. So if something didn’t work, we couldn’t just start over because the twilight would already be over. In take 2, a car door closed that couldn’t have closed. This happened after an hour of play. The day of shooting was over.

Which one-shot films have you enjoyed so far?

At Victoria I heard for the first time that directors were crazy enough to make a film this way. The effect of a one-shot film works subconsciously. Many who are not cinephiles will not notice it immediately.

What appeal do you think the colonial era theme adds to the horror film?

The theme made sense for a horror film because many people aren’t familiar with it. You tend to approach something rationally when you know a lot about it. The way we portray this era in Home Sweet Home, about the cries of women and babies, fire and smoke, there is something mystical about it.

You have been an actress since you were 14, you have now become the most successful YouTuber in Germany, you won €100,000 at Schlag den Star and you were seen in six different productions in 2023 alone. You are at an exciting point in your career. What would you like to shoot in the future?

I hope I’ll still be filming in five years. There is no guarantee there. Contra remains my heart project. I would shoot with Christoph Maria Herbst again in a heartbeat. The film was very well-rounded and not only had a great message without pretension, but was also subtle, clever and beautiful. From a political point of view, there are unfortunately enough burning issues at the moment that could be made into a film. I would be happy about a real passion project again.

Would you also like to film abroad or even in Hollywood?

Yes. The job remains the same, only the circumstances are new and therefore interesting. I don’t care about it, but I still wouldn’t say no. A lot is also happening in the German film world. It’s our job to make the audience really want to go to the cinema again. Cinema is a great experience that is simply suffering at the moment. It’s great if we can make a contribution with Home Sweet Home. Because you should watch horror in the cinema, especially if you want to be really scared.

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