German Films at the 24th European Film Festival
Germany / France / Belgium 2017
Director: Raoul Peck
Screenplay: Pascal Bonitzer, Raoul Peck
Director of photography: Kolja Brandt
Editing: Frédérique Broos
Music: Alexei Aigui
Cast:
August Diehl: Karl Marx
Stefan Konarske: Friedrich Engels
Vicky Krieps: Jenny Marx
Olivier Gourmet: Pierre Proudhon
Michael Brandner: Joseph Moll
Alexander Scheer: Willhelm Weitling
Hannah Steele: Mary Burns
Niels-Bruno Schmidt: Karl Grün
Ulrich Brandhoff: Herrmann Kriege
Hans-Uwe Bauer: Arnold Ruge
Production company: Agat Film & Cie (Paris), Velvet Film (Paris)
Producer: Nicholas Blanc, Rémi Grellety, Robert Guédiguian, Raoul Peck
Genre: Biography / Drama / History
Length: 112 min
Language: German with English subtitles
Synopsis:
Karl Marx is 26 years old and living with his wife Jenny in exile in Paris. He is habitually in debt and plagued by existential anxieties. When he first meets the slightly younger factory owner’s son Friedrich Engels he dismisses him as a dandy. But Engels, who has just published a study on the miserable impoverishment of the English proletariat, has long since begun to distance himself from his own class. The two like-minded men become friends and soon inspire each other to write texts in which they seek to provide a theoretical foundation for the revolution they believe must come. Their goal is no longer to merely interpret the world, but to change it. Fundamentally. Resistance on the part of conservative forces and internal power struggles within the political Left only serve to spur them on.
Raoul Peck describes the origins of the international Socialist movement, the emergence of the Communist League and its founding document, the Communist Manifesto. At the same time, the film paints a portrait of two impetuous young men who passionately believe in the vision of a humane society and the revolutionary power of the abused and oppressed.
Source: 67. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)
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