Das Handwerk, the German Federation of Craftsmen, turns the act of fixing a broken boiler into a modern-day Western.

The two-minute film is set in a snowy modern version of a Western town, where an old lady comes screaming out of her house in terror. She flags down a plumber in his truck, who bursts down the door of the house cowboy-style to find a priest appearing to be performing some kind of exorcism. To tense banjo music, he descends to the peril in basement and wrestles with the roaring iron stove, eventually transforming it into a modern-looking boiler. Then, he drives off into the sunset, watched by the grateful old lady and her admiring daughter, as the caption on screen asks: "So. What did you do today?”

In this kind of film, casting is almost an extension of production design as you’re searching for characters that have a very special look. Acting is important, but we were sculpturing the film by choosing specials faces. We were dependent on actors that are a little larger than life. Not just in terms of their looks (which are important) but also in terms of their skill, especially at the subtle end of the spectrum. Expressions are key. Inauthenticity is the enemy of suspense, so while there was an innate comedic quality to the u?ber cool hero, we needed him to be believable to draw in the audience – not create distance. This is also true of the random townsfolk, who I wanted to be instantaneously fascinating by the power of their strong and expressive faces. They needed to have classic western looks and be implacable in time and place.