20 Nov 2019
Director: Vincent Pérez
France, Germany, UK
2016
101 mins
Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson play an ordinary working-class German couple who quietly wage a personal campaign of anti-Nazi resistance. Uninterested in politics and content to keep to themselves, factory foreman Otto and his dutiful wife Anna are unlikely dissidents. When their son is killed on the battlefield, grief jolts them into action. They launch a silent protest and drop handwritten postcards denouncing Hitler across the city. With terror and paranoia infecting the German capital, their high-risk acts of defiance spark a citywide manhunt. Under mounting pressure to find the culprits, morally ambivalent police inspector Escherich (Daniel Brühl) pursues the case with increasing intensity as the net begins to tighten on the couple. Portraying a singular act of courage through dignified central performances under the stylish direction of Vincent Pérez, Alone in Berlin is inspired by a true story and adapted from Hans Fallada’s best-selling novel.