portraet2
Marie and Feline Grub, © Moritz Grub

Can you introduce yourself, explaining where you are from, what brought you to Berlin and what inspired you to pursue the career that you are in right now. 

We are Marie and Feline Grub,  identical twins and a directors-duo living in Berlin. In Munich we were born, in Vienna we spent a couple of years, then we moved to Berlin being stimulated by the vibrancy of this city.

In  art class we learned a lot about artists. Gilbert and George inspired us to do our first stop trick video seven years ago. The work of directors like Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jones and the pleasure of experimenting with film inspired us to pursue the career that we are in right now.

What do you think about the creative environment in Berlin?

Berlin has a really good creative environment. That’s why you meet a lot of interesting people from all over the world with exceptional ideas, that can be really inspiring and great to work with.

What cultures are you interested in?

The asian culture and the english culture are both pretty interesting.

Are there themes in your current work that you are focusing on?

At the moment we are working on portraits about people in Berlin, who make the city as it is: special. So a huge subject in this work is passion for what you do.

john
© Marie and Feline Grub

Tell us a little bit about your work. What inspires you generally?

We do short films/ music videos with an experimental touch. The mood in the film is always very important to us. What inspires us the most is music, everyday life, but all kinds of exhibitions as well. And of course films, short films and music videos.

What films have inspired you in recent years?

All the Wong Kar-Wai films, million dollar hotel, dreamers, apocalypse now….

Colour or black and white?

Mostly black and white

portraet
Marie and Feline Grub, © Moritz Grub

What makes you different? 

That we know each other longer than our mother does and since then shared similar interests and view on things. So I guess, when we are working on a project, it makes us one person splitted in two.

What would you say are your weaknesses?

When we have an idea in mind, we often start working on it right away, what in a lot of cases includes building something. So it can end up with sharing the apartment with huge cocoons for a period of time. I’m sure some of our neighbours think, we are crazy.

What keeps you up at night?

A good idea. The clicking sound of the heating-system.

How do you tackle uncertainties?

When we are uncertain about something. One of us has to convince the other. If she can’t, it is not good enough.

 What are you working on at the moment? 

A portrait about Jon John, a body performance artist and Tattoo Studio owner in Berlin and London.

jon
© Marie and Feline Grub
jonjohn_julemüller-7379
© Jule Müller

Anything coming up soon? 

We are working on a music video.

As we also do a lot of drawing, we are  working on a book called the Enjoyers (in german “die Genießer”). This is black and white drawings with short textparts. They have a lot to do with our view of enjoying life.

dagobert
© Marie and Feline Grub

If you want to see more of what Berlin’s director-twins are up to, check out their music video with:  Dagobert

 which earned already 52 000 views on Youtube. Well done, so far! Or watch more videos on their website die Genießer

 by Gabrielle Berlin