Original subtitles

The asteroid Horus remains on a collision course with the Earth.

It is expected to strike the French city of La Rochelle in eight days.

Europe finds itself within the so-called "kill zone".

It's a world where everyone is on the verge of a nervous breakdown,

everyone's in a crazy state of mind,

and all the conflicts are being driven towards a crescendo.

I've never seen anything remotely like "8 Days".

Stop!

We've waited long enough to see

similar series finally being made in Germany.

With "8 Days", we really wanted to be bigger than life.

8 DAYS MAKING OF

And... action.

It's about seeing how people react,

how people become so extreme in such an extreme situation,

irrespective of who you are, your age, where you live.

What are you waiting for? Get the ticket!

It's the ultimate extreme situation:

The world will end in eight days, what are you gonna do?

What will I do in the time I have left, what's most important to me?

We can sleep when we're dead!

With the official evacuation efforts in full flow,

people have been taking to the streets in all major German cities.

Everyone has their very personal way

of coming to terms with their fate.

I'm gonna shoot you all.

Stop!

Stop!

Jonas!

The thing I liked from the very start

was this situation where you have...

It's not like the real-life situation,

where you have Europe closing its doors to refugees,

instead it's us who need to flee and everyone else rejects us.

The script was written in a classic kind of writer's room scenario,

with Rafael as showrunner,

and the other writers were very cooperative.

We met up with them regularly.

It was actually fairly soon after film school.

We were sitting there as a young production company,

and we wanted to make a TV series that had never been made before.

We managed to spark some interest from Frank Jastfelder.

He thought the material was great,

and he wanted to make it with us.

And... action.

What I find cool about Sky as a broadcaster

is that they're very open to new things,

and they want to make TV

that's different from your average German TV show.

It's not what you expect from German TV.

It has a different kind of intensity

regarding the acting, the action,

the drama...

They're all things we haven't seen before on German TV,

especially not in this concentration.

Look through here.

Aim carefully.

And shoot!

The shoots were very physical,

and I was down with that,

I enjoyed that.

We always wanted it to be set in Berlin.

There's also the political side, so we wanted to shoot in the capital.

I don't think we could've found so many elements in one place anywhere else.

In terms of different architectural styles,

different eras,

from large hotels to sci-fi-like buildings.

Our set designer Christian Goldbeck did an amazing job

in finding all these locations.

The government bunker was shot at the velodrome,

the modern part of the Olympic stadium

and the congress centre,

so we used three locations for the bunker.

We have the same basic set elements in all three locations.

Here we have the security tunnel

where the bunker inhabitants are screened.

This is where everyone gets their bunker pass with QR code

that everyone has to wear on their arm.

And...action.

This is the Steiners' bunker accommodation.

Our new home. - I get top bunk!

My husband is crazy, my husband is totally crazy.

He's not my husband.

We had some really cool sets and locations.

The bunker was crazy...

it was really impressive.

Three, two, one. Action.

The government bunker was one of the most demanding sets,

because we had lots of extras in those scenes.

It's cool to go shoot the apocalypse,

you don't do that every day.

We had several studio sets for "8 Days".

A large one in Klaus's bunker

that we built from scratch.

And... action.

Your childish behaviour proves I was right.

It's for your own safety.

Let me go! - Stop it!

It's gonna be hell up there in a week.

People are gonna go nuts, you stay here.

Let me out!

It's exciting as an actor, because it's so extreme,

and that means you yourself can be more extreme in how you approach it.

Your character, how they might behave.

Here you have the feeling that...

the situation affords you the opportunity to do things,

to try things out and talk about them,

things that in a normal situation wouldn't even cross your mind.

And that's great, and certainly very creative.

With similarly demanding shoots

you'd have maybe five or six days that are so extreme.

Here it was many more,

because every scene is a matter of life or death,

because the end is in sight,

and everyone is struggling to survive.

Can we talk about this calmly?

Dad and Jonas are somewhere in Siberia!

And that really appealed to me.

It was just exciting, and a new experience.

You've got to help us.

I don't know what else I can do. Please!

Herrmann, please.

If only she'd stayed on that fucking train.

Herrmann!

We were shooting these civil war-like scenes,

which landed us in Bild.

HAVE YOU GUN INSANE?

It was quite amazing.

We were shooting these scenes with barricades and burning barrels,

and then you had the actual Chancellery in the background.

We see in one scene

Berlin Central Station, and it's been destroyed.

We can't actually destroy it for real, of course.

Sure, in that situation, Berlin has to fall.

Lots of extras, water spraying, turned-over cars...

I really enjoy turning up for work,

I get quite pumped, it's exciting.

It's never too late. - It is too late.

Stefan, Michael and I all agreed

that we wanted to see at least one penis in the series.

It was the first time I got my little fella out for the camera.

And that was... interesting.

It will come.

And it will be huge. - Robin!

What are you doing, Robin? - Why are you scared?

And all the other stuff that we decided you never see on German TV and cinema...

It fits our narrative.

We're very physical and everyone wants to break free from convention.

Hello.

Welcome on set.

Just your average day here.

I thought it was cool that we could find so many extras

who were up for it and in a great mood doing it,

because these things are difficult to manufacture.

Oh, yes, the wild party.

And...action!

Totally excessive.

You'll all be over here,

and we'll have girls and coke all over the place, the whole shebang.

I'm really proud of our cast.

I mean, what other TV series has such a terrific cast?

And it's great that Suse Marquardt, our casting director,

cast so many up-and-coming stars

alongside very established actors,

like Henry Hübchen, Christiane Paul or Mark Waschke.

I'm very happy with the cast.

They all work so fantastically well in their roles.

And that's doubly important for a series like this.

Yes!

A proper fisticuffs.

The winner gets to move into the bunker, the loser is out.

And now we are all going to sail into the light together.

Into the light!

SALVATION

I call the boat the "crucifixion steamboat"

where we re-enacted the Passion of Jesus and the Crucifixion.

I came up with the idea of,

rather than simply having the cross upright,

to lay it on the ship's funnel which can then be raised,

so our depiction of the crucifixion could be that little bit more intense,

whereby we slowly raise the funnel,

while he's being nailed to the cross.

That was my favourite design element.

The boat was great.

The way they decked it out was really cool.

It had a really nice improvised look to it.

All that decoration on our holy steamboat, on our Ark.

It's really great.

Actually...

I want the nail in focus in the foreground

and the screams out of focus in the background.

Right.

You'd think they'd be chalk and cheese.

You've got Stefan Ruzowitzky, the experienced, Oscar-winning director,

alongside Michael Krummenacher,

who has only made one or two films,

but they really complement each other.

It was really nice to work with Michael,

because he's a highly focused yet relaxed director.

We've got brother and sister, man and wife...

Yeah, and Pinocchio and...

When I found out that I was going to be working alongside Stefan,

I was excited, and saw it as an opportunity.

But rather than splitting the episodes,

we divided work according to subject matter.

Perfect.

The idea is for each director to concentrate on their own stories,

and then they'll be woven together like a rug, later in editing.

Thank you.

We want viewers on the edge of their seats.

We want sex, we want violence.

"8 Days" is simply a wild ride.

You can never be sure what's going to happen next.

Nothing in this world is innocent, simple or straightforward anymore.

It's going to be something special.

Intense, violent,

everyone giving it their all.

You're so close to the characters.

Like you're there with them, feeling their hope, their fear.

Almost coming-of-age.

There's some really fantastic characters and plot twists.

The things that unites us all is that we all believe in the story,

and that we all really want to see it unfold.

There has been rioting in several German cities.

The Chancellor has invoked martial law.

Is there anyone there?

8 DAYS

PRODUCED FOR SKY BY MAZ&MOVIE