NRW-funded drama „Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer“ to celebrate world premiere in Locarno
- On Friday, 7 August, on the Piazza Grande
- At the 68th Festival del film Locarno from 5-15 August, 2015
- Cast: Burghart Klaußner, Ronald Zehrfeld, Lilith Stangenberg, Sebastian Blomberg and Jörg Schüttauf
- Director: Lars Kraume, Production company: zero one film in cooperation with Terz Film, Cologne
- Film- und Medienstiftung NRW backed with a total 1.2 million Euros
Great cinema under the open sky: „The State vs. Fritz Bauer“ by Lars Kraume will celebrate its world premiere on the Piazza Grande at the 68th Festival del film Locarno, where up to 8,000 spectators can enjoy films in open air screenings each evening. Funded by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW with a total 1.2 million Euros, the drama was largely shot in NRW.
„We congratulate Lars Kraume, the producers and the whole acting ensemble headed by Burghart Klaußner for the invitation to Locarno“, says Petra Müller, CEO of the Filmstiftung NRW. „The Piazza premiere makes it clear that an extraordinary film has succeeded in being able to tackle an equally difficult as well as highly political subject from recent German history in an outstanding way. I am certain that the festival audience will also experience an impressive evening.“
About the film: Germany in 1957. While the young Federal Republic is wanting to leave the Nazi era quickly behind it, a man is fighting tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice in their own country: twelve years after the end of the war, the uncompromising prosecutor general Fritz Bauer (Burghart Klaußner) receives crucial evidence as to where the former SS officer Adolf Eichmann is said to be hiding. Together with the young public prosecutor Karl Angermann (Ronald Zehrfeld), Bauer begins to research the background. But they are faced with resistance through to the highest echelons: documents keep on disappearing in his own offices, and even the senior public prosecutor and Ulrich Kreidler and BKA secret service officer Paul Gebhardt try to hijack the unwelcome Bauer’s investigations. A seemingly futile struggle begins against invisible opponents, but Bauer and Angermann don’t give up, even though they are fully aware that the hunt for Eichmann will demand everything from them on both a professional and private level.
The lead roles are taken by Burghart Klaußner and Ronald Zehrfeld. The other cast are: Lilith Stangenberg, Sebastian Blomberg, Jörg Schüttauf, Laura Tonke, Götz Schubert, Rüdiger Klink, Michael Schenk and many others. The shooting of „Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer“, for which Kraume wrote the screenplay with Olivier Guez, lasted from October to December 2014 in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bad Honnef, Mönchengladbach, Königswinter, Hürth as well as in Israel.
zero one film produced the film together with the Cologne-based Terz Film and the broadcasters WDR, HR and ARTE. Alamode will release the film theatrically on 1 October, 2015, and world sales are being handled by Beta Cinema. The Film- und Medienstiftung NRW initially backed the historical drama with development support of 35,000 Euros. It supported the production with 1.085 million Euros and the distribution with an additional 80,000 Euros. Other backers were Hessische Filmförderung, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, the German Federal Film Board (FFA) and the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF).
The Festival del film Locarno is one of the most important European film festivals and is being held this year from 5 to 15 August. NRW-funded films have already won numerous priyzes here, including the Audience Award for „The Miracle of Berne“ as well as for „The Syrian Bride“. In 2006, Burghart Klaußner won the Golden Leopard for Main Actor for „The Man from the Embassy“, and the Silver Leopard went in 2008 to the director Malgoska Szumowska („33 Scenes From Life“). Last year saw saw Florian Mischa Böder’s crime comedy „A Hitman’s Solitude Before the Shot“ having its world premiere on the Piazza Grande.