Home Sweet Home with Nilam Farooq delivers 84 minutes of horror without editing and is now showing in cinemas. In this interview, Farooq talks about the unusual shoot and her future as an actress
Home Sweet Home with Nilam Farooq delivers 84 minutes of horror without editing and is now showing in cinemas. In this interview, Farooq talks about the unusual shoot and her future as an actress.
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 cellar of her country house. In an interview with Moviepilot, the actress revealed the challenges of shooting the film, which film with Christoph Maria Herbst remains her heartfelt project and how Home Sweet Home can make a contribution to German cinema
(Nilam Farooq in Home Sweet Home)
Moviepilot: This is the second time you’ve played a major role in a German horror film after Heilstätten. Do you have a special relationship with the genre?
Nilam Farooq: No, and I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I only intend to make horror films. It’s a challenging genre to shoot. With [Heilstätten], the challenge was that you’re not often allowed to make horror in Germany. With Home Sweet Home, the appeal was that the movie was shot as a one-shot, i.e. 90 minutes in one go.
Was it difficult to shoot continuously in those 90 minutes?
It’s a bit like a theater performance: you start acting and get into a kind of tunnel. I don’t remember exactly how the individual scenes were shot and I can’t remember which take we used at 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 it remains something technical: I had certain running lines and had to remember certain things. I couldn’t improvise.
More news: Netflix finally returns to arguably its best horror series
How many takes did you have to shoot? Were there any frustrating moments?
We shot three takes. The movie starts at dusk. So if something didn’t work, we couldn’t just start again from the beginning because dusk was already over by then. On take 2, a car door slammed shut that couldn’t have slammed shut. That happened after an hour of playing time. That was the end of the day’s shooting
(Christoph Maria Herbst and Nilam Farooq in Contra)
Which one-shot movies have you liked so far?
Victoria was the first time I heard that directors were crazy enough to shoot a movie this way. The effect of a one-shot film works subconsciously. Many people who are not cinephiles won’t notice it immediately.
What appeal do you think the colonial era theme adds to the horror movie?
The theme made sense for a horror movie because a lot of people aren’t familiar with it. When you know a lot about something, you tend to approach it rationally. The way we portray that era in Home Sweet Home, about women and babies screaming, fire and smoke, there’s something mystical about it.
You’ve been an actress since you were 14, have been the most successful YouTuber in Germany in the meantime, won €100,000 on Schlag den Star and appeared in six different productions in 2023 alone. You’re 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’ time. There’s no guarantee. Contra remains a project close to my heart. I would shoot with Christoph Maria Herbst again in a heartbeat. The movie was very well-rounded and not only had a great message without being pretentious, but was also subtle, clever and beautiful. Politically speaking, there are unfortunately enough burning issues at the moment that could be made into films. I would be happy to see a real project close to my heart again
(Home Sweet Home)
Would you also like to shoot abroad or even in Hollywood?
Yes. The job remains the same, only the circumstances are new and therefore interesting. I’m not going for it, but I still wouldn’t say no. There’s also a lot going on in the German film world. It’s our job to make audiences really want to go to the movies again. Cinema is a great experience that is simply suffering at the moment. It’s great if we can make a contribution to this with Home Sweet Home. Because horror should be watched at the movies, especially if you want to be really creeped out.
