Phase 1- The Idea
The idea for the film stemmed from the discovery of Toni Kumpel’s notebook in Jon Hickman’s (Director) grandfather’s attic in Guernsey. It appears that Toni may have been billeted there along with a number of other German soldiers and the book was left following Toni’s transfer to the Russian Front in Dec 1942.
At the time of the discovery, nothing was known about the writer- the book contained many scribbles, sketches and draft letters and one name “Toni” kept appearing throughout.
The initial idea of the film was a kind of modern day quest to trace the writer or his family and perhaps end with them receiving the book from us in a gesture of burying the past. Intercut would be the story of the Occupation of the Channel Islands but focusing heavily on the German perspective of events to give it an original edge. The idea was to create an unbiased honest account of those times- to show the terrible times endured by the islanders and ultimately by the soldiers serving there.
The book was translated during the summer in 2000 by David Caldwell-Evans. This was when we discovered the identity of our protagonist, Toni Kumpel, and the first mention of the village Buisdorf. There were a number of names and serial numbers of other soldiers which we were unfortunately never able to trace. Finally there were the letters: they translated as apologies for eating biscuits when he wasn’t supposed too and a story about the sinking of a British vessel off the coast by an Admiral Doberitz. It wasn’t much but it was a beginning and so we set off to the islands to raise some money to fund the research and hopefully the film shoot itself. It was at this time that the film became known as Toni’s War before being renamed In Toni’s Footsteps much further into the process.
