Making of

The basic idea of the K40 film was to organise a street race through a completely empty city. Not an illegal drag race from traffic light to traffic light, but an actual race – the dream of every motorcyclist: to make all the cars and other obstacles disappear, switch off the traffic lights and have the city all to yourself – to finally be able to “ride it out” here.

In Germany, we could forget about such a filming permit, individual streets can of course be closed here, I had even completely closed Leipziger Straße in Berlin for my Opel film a few years earlier – an 8-lane monster right through the centre of Berlin. But we didn’t dare to build a proper ring road here. In Budapest, however, our idea met with an open ear. The possibilities on offer here were a dream: main roads right through the city centre, tunnels, bridges, half the city. The tarmac was a bit borderline in places, especially for the speed at which we wanted to send the stunt drivers through the city, but when the drivers themselves gave the OK, we got going – and paralysed the city for three days.

The most radical closure was on the huge Elisabeth Bridge, which connects Budapest with the surrounding countryside. We closed it exactly on Sunday afternoon, when all the people of Budapest wanted to cross this bridge from their dachas in the countryside back into the city. While filming, I only noticed that at some point the police announced that they had to open the bridge again because the lines were red-hot with complaints. My Hungarian neighbours in Munich told me a week later that some idiot had closed the bridge during peak travel time because of a stupid film. The traffic jam this caused made the evening news that day. Sorry, Budapest. I was the idiot. But the shots that were taken were truly unique.