Casting is an improvised television film, about the casting process for a television film remake of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's famous love melodrama The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. The successful actor Andreas Lust plays the unsuccessful and unemployed actor Gerwin, who offers his services as a stand-in. What this means is that he represents the lead male actor, who has already been cast, speaking the cues for the actresses auditioning for the lead female role. While a number of high-profile German actresses are vying for the part, the team in the background is becoming demoralised by the highly ambitious demands of the director, and the entire production threatens to fall apart. This is where Gerwin sees his chance.
With Casting, Wackerbarth – who was born in Munich in 1973, trained as an actor and director, co-edited the film magazine Revolver, and works as a lecturer, curator and author – has managed to make a multi-faceted and colourful tragicomedy, which doesn't only tell of the hardships of job-seeking artists, but also about the creative process of working on a character. All the while, the complex emotional situation of the casting process mirrors Fassbinder's original.
