IF NOT US, WHO
by Andres Veiel
synopsis
West Germany in the early 1960s. The country is quiet – for the time being. Bernward Vesper takes up his studies in Tübingen where he is attending Walter Jens’ seminar on rhetoric. Bernward wants to be a writer and spends his nights bashing the keys of a typewriter. At the same time he is keen to defend his father, the poet Will Vesper who was celebrated by the Nazis as a proponent of their ‘Blood and Soil’ ideology. The land where Bernward lives is being suffocated by its past. The war has only been over for fifteen years, old Nazis are back in positions of power, and nobody is prepared to talk about war crimes; the Republic is standing to attention. One day Bernward meets Gudrun Ensslin and her friend Dörte. It soon transpires that Gudrun and Bernward are twin souls. This marks the beginning of an extreme relationship that is unquestioning and excessive, a love story that goes beyond the threshold of pain.
international title: | If Not Us, Who |
original title: | Wer wenn nicht wir |
country: | Germany |
sales agent: | The Match Factory |
year: | 2010 |
genre: | fiction |
directed by: | Andres Veiel |
film run: | 125' |
release date: | DE 10/03/2011, DK 22/09/2011, PL 30/09/2011, FI 07/10/2011, SE 07/10/2011, ES 25/11/2011, CZ 12/01/2012, HU 19/01/2012, UK 02/03/2012 |
screenplay: | Andres Veiel |
cast: | August Diehl, Susanne Lothar, Alexander Fehling, Sebastian Blomberg, Rainer Bock, Thomas Thieme, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Joachim Paul Assböck |
cinematography by: | Judith Kaufmann |
film editing: | Hansjörg Weißbrich |
art director: | Christian M. Goldbeck |
costumes designer: | Bettina Marx |
producer: | Thomas Kufus, Anatol Nitschke, Helge Sasse, Stefanie Groß, Werner Bergengruen, Jörn Klamroth |
production: | Zero One Film, Deutschfilm, Senator Film Produktion, SWR – Südwestrundfunk, WDR Westdeutscher Rundfunk, ARD Degeto Film GMBH |
distributor: | Senator Filmverleih, Soda Pictures, Vivarto, Golem Distribución, Film Europe, Film Europe s.r.o., Clorofilm Srl |