When life seems to be an ongoing holiday. On Islands, with Jan-Ole Gerster & Sam Riley
After his 2019 success with Lara (winner of the Special Prize of the Jury at KVIFF), Jan-Ole Gerster returns to the big screen with a Hitchcockian, noir-style movie that you wouldn’t recognize as his if it weren’t a character study like all of his other titles. Islands, his English-language debut, starring Sam Riley as the lead character Tom, portrays the lonely life of a tennis coach working at a luxury hotel in the Canary Islands, where he splits his time between wealthy tourist students and one-night stands with girls he meets at the local club. When Anne (Stacy Martin) and her family check in and request tennis lessons for her son, Tom soon realizes what he’s been missing: family, emotion and growth. Islands feels like a hot, arid day. You don’t know whether you want it to end or to get lost in it.
When the proposal for an interview with Jan-Ole came, I didn’t think much about it. We had met in 2019 at Karlovy Vary, where we talked about Lara and his ambitions as a director, so I was curious to observe how his thoughts and ideas had evolved in the years since. But discovering Sam Riley in his latest movie made me want to interview them both. His performance as Tom is outstanding; he embodies isolation and resignation to fate in a way that made me ask myself whether he had ever found himself in Tom’s shoes.
We met online, over a Zoom call, each of us in our own private space. I noticed they both had a guitar in the room, and Sam had a very impressive collection of sunglasses. We discussed how they met, what they learned from each other, how they would escape an endless holiday (and if!), and many other things in between.
Let’s start with the most obvious question – how did you two meet?
Jan-Ole: Sam, do you want to tell the story of our first date?
Sam: Yes. I orchestrated it, that’s how I remember it. I got hold of the script through a mutual agent that we shared and I just adored the script, so I was desperate to get this part. We’re both living in Berlin, so I nagged my agent to get a meeting with Jan-Ole and I went dressed like Tom.
Jan-Ole: He was wearing a tennis outfit.
Sam: I had never worn a baseball cap backwards in my life, but I did it for this meeting.
Jan-Ole: The outfit rather distracted me, but I enjoyed the exchange we had. Not just about the script, or the character, but also getting to know Sam – I was a big fan of him since I saw him in Control, so I was hoping to bump into him sooner or later. He was the first actor I talked with about the film and I told him I have a 3-date rule, but it was love at first sight. The way he talked about the character and his relation with the character, it felt all very natural. But I made him meet me a second time and a third time and the third time was on the tennis court. It was painful to watch him play but then he got a tennis coach. (laughs)
From my point of view, Sam, you’re the best thing about this film. Incredible acting. What struck you the most about your character?
There’s different sort of layers to that. There’s the more egocentric one, which is that it’s the lead part. The whole film is on Tom’s shoulders and I had that experience with my very first film and I loved it.
And then there’s that I loved the character. I could relate to the self-destructive nature of this guy and in many ways I felt like had my life not been rescued at some point that I could have easily drifted in that sort of lost direction. It wasn’t foreign to me. And it’s a beautiful genre film. To be honest, I don’t think any actor my age wouldn’t want to play this part.
The idea of my latest film, Islands, started with an encounter I had on an island with an actual tennis coach. I was intrigued by this person who seemed to live an endless summer, living like he was still in his 20s, but he was in his late 40s. (Jan-Ole Gerster)
Jan-Ole, all your films are character studies – what fascinates you the most about people?
I think the parts that remain mysterious to them, you know. I was asked many times what it is that makes me relate to these passive, slightly detached, lonely characters?
I don’t dare to give myself an answer to that, it would touch the field of self-analysis, but ever since I discovered my interest for films, I connected with the anti-heroes. The rather struggling ones that seem to be stuck, that have troubles getting in touch with the world around them.
The idea of my latest film, Islands, started with an encounter I had on an island with an actual tennis coach. I was intrigued by this person who seemed to live an endless summer, living like he was still in his 20s, but he was in his late 40s. And he kept telling himself that he enjoys his life, but at the same time, to me, he seemed a bit lonely and emotionally and socially neglected. Like he was living in denial. And I think we all do that, to a certain degree, but in his case it was so obvious. And the whole setup around him was so cinematically stunning, so one thing led to another and he became this character in my mind.
It’s never explicitly stated in the film, but it makes you believe Tom might be the biological father of Anton. Have you discussed it during rehearsals, was it an important part when developing the character of Tom?
Jan-Ole: I felt the urge, not only as a writer, to have a proper answer to that. And maybe I should have had a proper answer to that, but I never had. I thought there were aspects about both versions of what might have or haven’t happened in the past that were interesting to play around with but in the end, I really avoided giving any answers because I like the energy and the dynamic of the uncertain and the unspoken. It’s a film that, on a metaphorical level, addresses the things that are underneath. And in that sense, Fuerteventura was the perfect place to set the story in because of the volcanic activity and this harsh, timeless landscape.
Sam: Tom is certainly someone that is not asking himself too many questions. He’s avoiding them every day when he wakes up, surely feeling horrific from the night before. We’ve all, at some point in our lives, been at a crossroads where we either take a leap of faith or whatever it is to be honest or to confess or to turn things around. And all of the characters in the film have been unable to do that. Tom certainly, for a very long time. But then, you know, I love how it ends.
Let’s try to imagine your life could be a constant holiday. Where or how do you think you would escape from life?
Jan-Ole: I mean, this is pretty much the center theme of the whole film – people longing to be in someone else’s life, even in a different place far away from what they thought was their problem but we all know we can’t run away from these things. When I started writing the script, I was sitting at my desk during lockdown and I thought like “fuck, now I’m trapped in Berlin. It’s February, I want to go to a better place.”, so I started to write Islands because I thought it would be nice to escape for a little while, at least in my mind. However, whenever I’m in a warm place with steady weather, every day looks the same and I start to miss the seasons.
Sam: I mean, I love a holiday. I’m like a lizard, I can lie in the sun all day long. So this was one of the best parts of the job, my instructions from Jan-Ole to get a tan.
I had a lot of years of escapism, if you know what I mean. And now I’m trying to live life on life’s terms and accept reality and not be wondering if I had something else, then my life will be better. And my escapism is the work I do and it’s such a joy.
Could you pinpoint anything that you learned from one another?
Sam: There are many things. This is really one of my absolute favorite films that I’ve been involved in 20 years. I love how Jan-Ole tells stories. I love his imagination. And I hope this isn’t the last time I work with Jan-Ole. It was immensely rewarding for me. Exhausting, too and challenging but incredibly rewarding.
Jan-Ole: I think I learned from Sam that optimism and the joy of making it is as important as the result. Sometimes I tend to be a little bit stressed by the moment. I remember that we were struggling with a shot. The light was going away and I was hiding behind my little monitor thinking I might have to change the whole scene as it’s not working out. And then I felt this hand on my shoulder and there was this angel in the person of Sam, looking down at me, saying “have a little faith. Let’s try again”. I was mesmerized by his voice and I said okay, why not. Let’s try again. And we shot a beautiful, beautiful take. I think these kinds of things find their way into the film in a way that you know they are invisible to the public, but for you, they’re part of the successful realization of the project. And this is something I took away from working with Sam.
I just adored the script, so I was desperate to get this part. We’re both living in Berlin, so I nagged my agent to get a meeting with Jan-Ole and I went dressed like Tom. (Sam Riley)
Jan-Ole, why an english-spoken film – was it a long-time dream?
I think it was just about timing. The story was on my mind for a long time, for years, you know, in which I had told everyone about it. But when people asked what it was about, I didn’t know, so I was pitching a half-baked idea. Until some things happened, like when I got a call from the producers of Islands and they expressed their wish to work with me, but they said they exclusively shoot films in English for reasons of international financing. They asked me if I had an idea that would work in the English language. On the other hand, there was this agent that we mentioned before who also kept asking me if there’s anything I could shoot in English. And since there are as many drunk British tourists on Fuerteventura as there are Germans drunk tourists, it felt like the perfect story for my English language debut. So I thought the moment had come to make my first foreign film and work with these great British actors.
I like very much the atmosphere of your films. Music and cinematography are both contribute to the feeling you get watching one of your movies but each time, you worked with a different composer and a different DOP. Is this because you still haven’t found the perfect team, or perhaps you enjoy more experimenting?
I think every film made me reach out to different kind of collaborators. For my first film, I can’t remember why but we tried jazz music and it went very well with the black and white film. It became more ironic, less heavy and less melancholic. So I tried to find a jazz band that would be able to create a score with no money. It was a no budget film, so I worked with some jazz students. They weren’t composers. For my second film, Lara, where the score was more in the classical music range I had to look for a composer and I ended up, once again, with someone who wasn’t necessarily a film composer, but a classical music composer. I was looking for someone who came from that world.
In the case of Islands, I was stunned by Juan Sarmiento’s previous works as a DOP. He’s a Colombian cinematographer who came to Germany 15 years ago. I thought he has a very interesting and remarkable cinematic language, which is now discovered by many other filmmakers because Juan had an amazing year in 2025. He’s the cinematographer of two very good films: Poeta (Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, 2025) and The Voice of Hind Rajab (nominated at Oscars 2025 for Best Foreign Film). He’s a really true cinematic artist. He thinks the scene in a way that you usually don’t find in cinematographers in Germany. He’s trying to capture the essence of a scene. If possible, always in this one shot, which to me was very attractive but also a bit terrifying because it doesn’t give you a lot of options in the editing. You really have to trust the scene. So, I promised myself to be brave and courageous about this new way of working. And I think we got rewarded by this approach, you know. By trying to find the moment, the atmosphere, and trust the timing of the actors. It all worked out just beautifully. It’s been amazing to watch Juan working with the actors who had this very accurate sense of timing. It actually made my job so much easier.
The first time we met for an interview you told me you can never be 100% satisfied with a film you’ve made, unless it’s Taxi Driver. So, I’m curious, how satisfied are you with Islands?
Jan-Ole: I still agree to that (laughs). But, look, I love watching Islands and I can’t necessarily say that about my other films. I like them all, I know why I made them. I identify with them. But it’s more like reading an old diary and feeling a little bit ugh about it. I think Islands is still a personal film, but also a more mature film. I hope that I will keep enjoying watching it in the future. For now, I really like it.
Islands is now screening in Romanian cinemas.
Film producer and founder of ADFR, she dreamed since she was little of having a magazine one day. Alongside her job as editor-in-chief, she writes the interview of the month. She loves animals, jazz music and films festivals.
Film producer and founder of ADFR, she dreamed since she was little of having a magazine one day. Alongside her job as editor-in-chief, she writes the interview of the month. She loves animals, jazz music and films festivals.