When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit (2019)

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Movie
Original title When Hitler stole the pink rabbit
Country of production Germany , Switzerland
original language German
Publishing year 2019
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
JMK 6
Rod
Director Caroline Link
script Anna Brüggemann ,
Caroline Link
production Jochen Laube ,
Fabian Maubach
music Volker Bertelmann
camera Bella halves
cut Patricia Rommel
occupation

When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit is a German family film by director Caroline Link , which was released in German cinemas on December 25, 2019. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Judith Kerr , which was published in 1971 under the original title: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit .

action

In 1933 in Berlin. Anna is only nine years old when her life changes radically. To escape the Nazis, her father Arthur Kemper, a well-known Jewish journalist, has to flee to Zurich. His family, Anna, her twelve-year-old brother Max and her mother Dorothea, followed him a short time later. Anna has to leave everything behind, including her beloved pink stuffed rabbit, and face a new life full of challenges and hardships abroad. The film ends with the exiled family moving from Paris to London in autumn 1935.

Literary template

The film is based on the novel When Hitler Pink Rabbit stole from Judith Kerr , in 1971 under the title When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit was published. The autobiographical children's and young people's book is still part of the reading canon in many schools today, is considered a standard work for introducing the subjects of the Third Reich and the refugee problem and has been awarded numerous prizes, such as the 1974 German Youth Literature Prize as an “outstanding children's book”. It was translated into German by Annemarie Böll . Up to 2013, 1.3 million copies of the book had been sold in Germany.

The novel begins in the period before the Reichstag elections in March 1933 , when Anna was nine years old and lived in Berlin with her Jewish family . Anna's father is a well-known writer and theater critic who also publishes articles against Hitler and the NSDAP in newspapers and magazines. He fled for fear of Hitler taking power and the arrest that would come with it.

When Hitler stole the pink rabbit is the prelude to a trilogy of novels in the course of which Anna, from whose perspective the story is told, grows into a grown woman. The trilogy begins in 1933 and ends in the 1950s. The titles of the sequels are: Waiting for Peace to Come and A Kind of Family Reunion .

production

Directed by Caroline Link , who, together with Anna Brüggemann, also adapted Kerr's novel for the film. Similar to Judith Kerr at the time, who wrote down her childhood memories for her eight-year-old son, Link also tried to tell of persecution and escape during National Socialism in a way that was accessible to children under the age of 14.

The Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg funded the film with 650,000 euros. From BKM he received production funding in the amount of 500,000, from FilmFernsehFonds Bayern in the amount of 500,000 euros and the German Federal Film Board as of 500,000. The media and film company Baden-Württemberg granted production funding of 400,000 euros.

The film is based on the novel When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by
Judith Kerr, who died in May 2019

The nine-year-old protagonist Anna is played by the young actress Riva Krymalowski . The child actress, who lives in Berlin, goes to the same elementary school in Berlin-Grunewald that Judith Kerr once attended, and her novel is part of the school reading there. “Actually only in the sixth grade. But my mom, who was also at school, gave me the book beforehand and I love it very much, ”says Krymalowski. Anna's brother Max is played by Marinus Hohmann . Swiss actresses Carla Juri and Oliver Masucci took on the roles of parents Dorothea and Arthur Kemper . Other roles include Justus von Dohnányi as Uncle Julius and Ursula Werner as Heimpi the housekeeper. Juri describes mother Dorothea as an exciting figure. “She starts out as someone who leads a nice and comfortable life, but then loses everything, her piano, her career as a pianist, her money, her culture, her language. [...] She learns to be happy about simple things. And she realizes how much she loves her family. "

Filming began on July 17, 2018 and ended on September 25, 2018. The shooting took place in Baden-Württemberg , on Lake Constance , in Berlin , in Switzerland in the Engadin and Bergell , in Prague and in Bavaria , for example in August 2018 in Munich , which served as a backdrop to wintry Paris. A stationery was built here in the second-hand bookshop on Schellingstrasse. For this purpose, the shop's shelves were provided with fronts in which goods from the 1930s are presented. Exterior shots were taken in Prague that depict Paris .

The film music was composed by Volker Bertelmann . The soundtrack album was released for download from Needlewood Records in April 2020.

The first trailer was presented at the beginning of October 2019. The film celebrated its world premiere on December 8, 2019 in Berlin's Zoo Palast . It started in German cinemas on December 25, 2019. In September 2020, the film will be shown in the cinema as part of the children's media festival Goldener Spatz in Gera and Erfurt.

reception

Age rating

In Germany, the film was approved by the FSK without any age restriction. The film critic Antje Wessels notes on her film blog that director Caroline Link subordinates the war to family cohesion in When Hitler the Pink Rabbit stole the war , so that the film is ultimately no longer a war film in the true sense of the word. Stefan Stiletto from Filmdienst asks whether this positive attitude and such a light-footed narrative about flight and expulsion, in the specific case of the Holocaust , is appropriate, but notes that Link is thus staying true to the narrative of the novel , without looking at the seriousness to close the situation and to make the privations, the fears and the worries clear: “ When Hitler stole the pink rabbit is not an optimistic story about escape. But one about never losing your courage to face life. Perhaps this message is all the more credible here because it comes from the mouth of a child. "

Reviews and grossing results

Stefan Stiletto writes in the film service that Caroline Link once again proves her special flair in casting and acting for children. With Riva Krymalowski she succeeded in a stroke of luck, and the role of Anna is played by the young actress with a mixture of curiosity, cheek, wit and fragility, which makes her exactly the strong personality that can carry this story.

The film was honored by the youth film jury of the German Film and Media Assessment and received the rating of Particularly Valuable from the Film Assessment Office itself . The reasoning states that When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit is a film specially tailored to the film experiences of a younger audience, which not only addresses the Nazi era and the Holocaust , but above all also flight , expulsion and homelessness : “Issues that have become more central issues in our society than ever. And thus topics that should not be dealt with too early or often enough in cinematic terms. "

In Germany, the film has had around 992,000 visitors so far.

Use in school lessons

kinofenster.de , the online portal for film education of the Federal Agency for Civic Education and Vision Cinema , recommends the film for the subjects German , ethics / life studies , religion, history and art and offers materials for the film for teaching purposes. In her review, Antje Wessels writes that the Kempers' journey will be an experience above all thanks to their child-friendly naivete, which makes the film predestined to show the future at all German schools as well as the book about the effects of the Second World War on families To clarify individual fates. In January and February 2020, the film was presented as part of the SchulKinoWochen in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Awards

Bavarian Film Award 2019

German Film Award 2020

German Acting Award 2020

Golden Sparrow 2020

  • Nomination for best feature film

German Film Critics' Prize 2019

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 195022 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. Age rating for When Hitler stole the pink rabbit . Youth Media Commission .
  3. a b When Hitler stole the pink rabbit. In: fbw-filmbeval.com. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
  4. ^ A b c d Barbara Hordych: Paris is in Schwabing: Oscar winner Caroline Link filmed the novel "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit". A set visit in Munich. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 12, 2018.
  5. Medienboard funding commitments January 2018 (PDF). Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg . Retrieved March 28, 2019.
  6. a b c Svenja Runciman: "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit": First shut. Golden Camera , July 23, 2018.
  7. Tom Stolzenberg: When Hitler stole the pink rabbit: end of shooting. In: Film.tv, September 27, 2018.
  8. ^ According to Schellenursli, the pink rabbit. In: fm1today.ch. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
  9. Blick: Carla Juri is shooting for Hollywood again.Retrieved November 4, 2019.
  10. 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' Soundtrack Released. In: filmmusicreporter.com, April 23, 2020.
  11. Björn Becher: "When Hitler stole the pink rabbit": The trailer for the new film adaptation of the famous refugee story. In: filmstarts.de, October 4, 2019.
  12. Heike Schüler: "Pink Rabbit" celebrates its premiere. In: December 8, 2019.
  13. a b Antje Wessels: When Hitler stole the pink rabbit. In: wessels-filmkritik.com, December 16, 2019.
  14. a b Stefan Stiletto: When Hitler stole the pink rabbit. In: Filmdienst. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  15. When Hitler stole the pink rabbit. In: jugend-filmjury.com. Retrieved December 29, 2019.
  16. Top 100 Germany 2019. In: insidekino.com. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  17. https://www.visionkino.de/unterrichtsmaterial/filmhefte/filmheft-als-hitler-das-rosa-kaninchen-stahl/
  18. https://www.visionkino.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Unterrichtsmaterial/filmhefte/Viki-Filmheft-Nr32-AlsHitlerdasRosaKaninchenstahl.pdf
  19. https://nrw.db-schulkinowochen.de/webanmeldung/web_film.inc.php?selectedNr=950&PNr=7523
  20. https://www.antennethueringen.de/events/28.-deutsches-kinder-medien-festival-goldener-spatz-1033278.html
  21. ↑ The nominations for the German Film Critics Award 2019 have been confirmed. In: vdfk.de, January 23, 2020.