Michael Danisch

On September 27th, a special version of Climate: The Movie premieres in Germany, near Hamburg. This version has a German voice over, a solo job by Michael Danisch, who spoke and recorded all the lines by himself and will also be present at the premiere. His effort was very well received by director Martin Durkin, who says he loves it. A good reason for an interview with Michael.

 Can you tell us about yourself, who is Michael Danisch?
I’ve been trying to answer this question all my life – with moderate success:-).

So on the outside, I’m an actor who has earned his living mainly on the theatre stage. As far as my actual (inner) interests are concerned, for the sake of brevity I must try to describe a book-filling topic in one sentence: When I have understood what the phenomenon of ‘reality’ is – what ‘space and time’ are outside of their mundane measurable quantity,…of which I am a part – perhaps even the cause – then I come closer to the answer as to who ‘I’ might be in it.

I think such a question best describes my interests, even if they are perhaps understood by very few people.

 Since when and why are you interested in climate change?
I was never really interested in it. I became aware of it through completely nonsensical and inconclusive claims about the climate, which is constantly and inevitably changing in a natural way.

Catastrophe warnings have been regularly issued since the 70s – forest dieback, river dieback, hole in the ozone layer, coming ice age…and so on. We didn’t need to heed them because these warnings were not followed by a personal threat.

That’s different now. Since the initially successful corona control experiment of the masses in 2020 worldwide, the threat of the end of the world due to man-made climate change has now been elevated to a new religion.

As with any strict dogmatic religion, ‘non-believers’ are ostracized – so now people are actually under personal threat.

How did you find out about the publication of Climate: The Movie?
I spend a lot of time online and on alternative media. I found out about it somewhere.

How did you get the idea to make a voice over in German?
In some ways I’m a typical German – and unfortunately I don’t speak enough English to understand everything.

As a German, I’m used to all films and documentaries being dubbed in German, or having a voice over for documentaries. Reading quickly changing subtitles while you want to see the pictures is an artistic act that we Germans are unable to cope with.

As this topic is currently dominating politics and society like no other, educating people about the background to this new religion is the only defence we have at our disposal. It was therefore important to me to make this really well-made education accessible to the ‘subtitle-despising’ German – even if I don’t agree with every statement in the film.

The film sometimes gives the impression that the climate sect is anti-capitalist – but the exact opposite is probably the case. As Nobel laureate Dr. John Clauser correctly points out: “This is not about billions, but trillions of dollars”.  It is the biggest business deal in living memory.

How did you make the voice over for the movie?
I don’t think the individual technical steps are really interesting. Of course, it’s a lot of work – including preparatory work – if you want to do it on your own and with the means of ‘home recording’ in a reasonably professional way. My training and decades of experience as an actor and voice-over artist were of course a good basis here.

The fact that I was actually able to do everything on my own – i.e. speak three different voices (presenter and male and female scientists) – is thanks to the new possibilities offered by AI.

Fortunately, I also have good experience in editing audio and video material.

Is climate change a big issue in your country and how do you notice this?
From what I’ve heard, Germany is probably the driving force behind the whole thing. In terms of their culture, Germans are very obedient and compliant towards the authorities, and are therefore very easy to manipulate.

I also think that the Germans are still in the midst of an unresolved identity crisis after the trauma of the last war. So it is very easy here to give them a ‘new identity’ – an identity of the ‘saviours of the planet’. A normal relationship to one’s own nation is now considered right-wing extremist here – with all the associated attributes of racism and anti-Semitism.

What do you think about the developments around Compact Magazin (the ban), that used to be critical about the climate narrative?
I only know the name of the magazine and have never read it myself. So I can’t say anything about the specific political orientation of the magazine. Since I have experienced a ‘left-wing’ socialization, I would probably not be one of the magazine’s readers – at least that is what I conclude from what I have heard about the magazine’s basic political stance.

Basically, however, every true democrat in Germany – and this includes even the magazine’s fierce opponents who hold completely different political views – agrees that this is a direct attack on the rule of law, democracy and the associated freedom of the press and freedom of opinion. It is without doubt a direct attack on the basic democratic order.

What question did we forget?
Any question that would be of interest to you. … but I don’t know them:-)