If Not Us, Who (Wer wenn nicht wir)
“Consistently intriguing … Veiel’s script displays impressive cogency in examining the relations between words, beliefs and action in a cultural context that is as influenced by literary as by political allegiances.” (Screen Daily)
East Coast Premiere
Germany, 2011, color, 126 minutes, German with English subtitles
Director/Screenplay: Andres Veiel Producer: Thomas Kufus Cast: Michael Wittenborn, Lena Lauzemis, Alexander Fehling, Maria-Victoria Dragus, Rainer Bock, Thomas Thieme, Susanne Lothar, August Diehl, Imogen Kogge Sales: The Match Factory (Cologne)
After taking a back seat to more notorious 1970s Red Army Faction figures in such recent German features as Christopher Roth’s Baader and Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex, radical left firebrand Gudrun Ensslin—who predated Ulrike Meinhof as Andreas Baader’s partner in Marxist revolutionary crime—comes to the fore in this propulsive drama from acclaimed documentarian turned feature director Andres Veiel (Black Box Germany, Addicted to Acting). Brought indelibly to life in a transformative performance by relative newcomer Lena Lauzemis, Ensslin moves from innocent to radical via her combustible and bohemian relationship with writer Bernward Vesper (August Diehl) and life-changing fling with Baader (Alexander Fehling). Winner of the Alfred Bauer Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the German Film Awards’ Film Award in Bronze, If Not Us, Who expands the scope of big-screen drama from this chaotic period in German history.—Eddie Cockrell
Andres Veiel (b: 1959, Stuttgart, Germany) studied psychology, directing and dramaturgy in Berlin. His award-winning feature-length documentaries include A Winternight’s Dream (1992), Balagan (1993), The Survivor, the acclaimed Black Box Germany (2001) and Addicted to Acting (2004). His distinctive docudrama The Kick (2006) won the Grand Prize at the Cinéma du Réel in Paris.
