The lawyers - a German story
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The lawyers - a German story |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Birgit Schulz |
| script | Birgit Schulz |
| production | Bildersturm Filmproduktion, Cologne in cooperation with WDR (Christiane Hinz, Andrea Ernst), NDR (Silvia Gutmann), rbb (Jens Stubenrauch) and Arte |
| music | Marcus Schmickler |
| camera |
Isabelle Casez , Axel Schneppat |
| cut | Katharina Schmidt |
| occupation | |
The Lawyers - A German Story is a German film by Birgit Schulz . The official German theatrical release of the documentary was on November 19, 2009.
content
The film shows an excerpt from the history of Germany from the 1968 movement up to 2009 based on a portrait of the lawyers Otto Schily , Hans-Christian Ströbele and Horst Mahler . The starting point is a dpa press photo from 1973 of the three in a Berliner Courtroom shows; Mahler is in the dock, Schily and Ströbele are his defense lawyers.
The documentation traces the biographies of the three men who, as lawyers for the left - wing extra-parliamentary opposition, fought against the Federal Republic of Germany as a restrictive state, sometimes with radical means. The aim is to show the points in time at which they embarked on very different paths in life and even ended up becoming political opponents. Today Schily is a former federal minister of the SPD , Ströbele is a politician of the Greens , whereas Mahler became an avowed right-wing extremist and convicted Holocaust denier . The emergence of the extra-parliamentary opposition is shown in a mixture of archive material and interviews. The constantly growing resistance against the Vietnamese policy of the USA and against old Nazis in important functions in the German state is also presented. Apart from a short introduction, the film does not have any comments.
Reviews
" The lawyers can be regarded as very successful, especially in the compilation of the contemporary documents ."
"Even if the lawyers seem a little outdated at one point due to new findings (the shooter of the student Benno Ohnesorg has meanwhile been exposed as a former IM of the Stasi ), this does not affect him, but makes him a very worth seeing study on the link between Private and political, of life and the course of history. "
“The film convinces with its formal determination, its excellent editing and a calm dramaturgy that trusts its subject. [...] The film comes very close to the sitter, creates an actually impossible conversation, namely that between all three. [...] There is plenty of room to form your own opinion and to find your own attitude towards the three protagonists. "
“The commonality that can be felt across all the rifts in the film in the three earlier" left lawyers "is a pleasure in dissidence. In this they are not only heirs to the revolt of 1968. In their biographies, the various facets, triumphs as well as abysses, of a libertarian understanding of freedom, which feeds on ethics and resistance, unfold. It is to the credit of this irritating, highly suspenseful documentary that it passes the questions on these biographies on to us. "
Awards
The film received the rating of particularly valuable from the FBW .
On September 21, 2010, he was honored with the Phoenix Documentary Film Prize 2010 in Cologne .
In 2011 the film was awarded the Grimme Prize in the Information & Culture category.
literature
- Martin Block; Birgit Schulz: The lawyers - Ströbele, Mahler, Schily. A German story. Torch bearer, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-7716-4456-7
- Hanno Hochmuth: "Only idiots don't change". Biographical change and historical construction of meaning in the documentary “The Lawyers” . In: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History 7 (2010) No. 1, pp. 137–144 ( online version ).
Web links
- The Lawyers - A German Story in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Lawyers - A German Story at filmportal.de
- Official website with movie trailer
- Martin Block (ed.): The lawyers - A German story. Accompanying teaching material for teachers. (PDF; 561 kB)
- The lawyers - a German story. (PDF; 273 kB), monthly edition of the cinema window November 2009, ed. from the Federal Agency for Civic Education and Vision Cinema
- The lawyers - see a German history documentary online
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The Lawyers - A German Story . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2009 (PDF; test number: 118 830 K).
- ↑ The Lawyers - A German Story on moviemaze.de ( Memento from September 4, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ Criticism at kino-zeit.de
- ↑ a b Grimme Prize: Reasons given by the jury ( memento of the original from April 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Review ( How they became what they are ) in the features section of the FAZ, November 2009.
- ↑ FBW press release
- ↑ WDR co-production “Die Anwälte - Eine deutsche Geschichte” by Birgit Schulz awarded the PHOENIX Documentary Prize. WDR press release from September 21, 2010
