Berlinale
Dresen wishes his new film was “not so current”
Director Andreas Dresen is showing his new film “In Love, Your Hilde” at the Berlinale. photo
© Soeren Stache/dpa
With “In Love, Your Hilde” Andreas Dresen enters the competition for the bears. It tells the story of Hilde Coppi in the resistance against the Nazi regime. Starring: Liv Lisa Fries.
Long applause for Coppi’s son
After the premiere of the two-hour drama on Saturday afternoon, the film team and Hilde Coppi’s son, Hans Coppi Jr. (81), who was born in prison, came on stage and was welcomed on stage by the audience with long applause and a standing ovation.
The film follows the story of Hilde Coppi (1909 – 1943), who was a member of the Rote Kapelle resistance group, and her commitment against the Nazi regime. Liv Lisa Fries (“Babylon Berlin”) plays the leading role. The film also shows Coppi’s love for her husband Hans, the time she was pregnant in prison and her execution by the Nazis.
The focus is particularly on the short time that Hilde, as a condemned person, is allowed to spend in prison with her newborn son. Dresen, who is known for films like “Summer on the Balcony” or most recently “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush,” repeatedly works with time jumps.
The film is largely driven by Fries – it is quite possible that she will win a Berlinale Bear for her intense performance. She portrays Hilde, who is sometimes brittle and sometimes almost childlike and cocky, as a strong, headstrong character.
Dresen: Resistance fighters “at eye level”
Dresen doesn’t want to glorify his protagonists – he shows them, for example, camping at the lake or together in an ice cream parlor. At the same time, they learn how to use sparks to transmit strategically important messages to the Soviet Union. The director said on Saturday that Laila Stieler’s script convinced him. “I read it and I fell in love with the main character. She is such a quiet, lovable, upright, fundamentally decent, brave woman that I immediately wanted to make the film.”
The story does not represent a very heroic view of resistance, as was previously the case in the GDR. “Here these people were suddenly at eye level, these people, and you could wonderfully see that they were young, that they had gone swimming (…) and then that they had behaved very bravely in the world in which they lived .” In addition to “In Love, Your Hilde,” 19 other films are in the running for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale. The awards ceremony is on February 24th.