Bessel Kok

„Just before I left for New Zeeland, because I wanted to go to New Zeeland and be a year I divorce… I had a divorce, so I was a single boy and I wanted to go to New Zeeland. And then I got a call from Berlin, from a man called Peter Fleischmann, he was a famous cult film director in the 80s, 70s and 80s in Germany. He made a famous film called Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern. He is a wonderfull guy, and he had another friend, he was Volker Schlondorf, another famous director. Fassbinder… There was a whole German film generation which was quite well known. And they were asking my help because the wall was gone, Die Maur, and the studios, the famous German film studios in Berlin in a place called Bebelsberg in old East Germany were going to be privatized, because everything had to be privatized. You remember that period. And they were thinking… Big real estate company wanted to make a parking out of it.”

„It was also at that time that Havel got angry with me once. We were discussing Russia, it was in two thousand seven or what, and I made this stupid Western statement at that time which many people used, like Putin of course is a dictator but don`t you think that maybe Russians need a guy like that? It was very common to say that. And Havel – I will never forget that – said `Bessel never ever say those things again. No country deserves a dictator. And definitely not Putin`. That was two thousand seven or eight. And I never used it again. He could be angry; he could be very angry. “