- Title: GERMANY: Red Army Faction film premieres in Germany and enters race for Oscars
- Date: 18th September 2008
- Summary: MUNICH, GERMANY (SEPTEMBER 16, 2008) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (German) ULI EDEL, DIRECTOR OF "BAADER-MEINHOF-KOMPLEX", SAYING: "With this movie, I first and foremost wanted to show my 20 and 21 year old sons, who were my age at the time, I wanted to tell them the story. They grew up in America and knew nothing of the Baader-Meinhof-story. I wanted to tell them everything I k
- Embargoed: 3rd October 2008 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Germany, Germany
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA91PV43S0TZR3PM1MTLXQ4WVMB
- Story Text: Documentary-style thriller recounts one of the darkest chapters in post-war Germany.A film tracking the rise and fall of the Red Army Faction, a group of left-wing militants suspected of killing dozens of prominent West German figures in the 1970s and 1980s, had its premiere in Munich on Tuesday (September 16).
The documentary-style thriller is a graphic account of one of the darkest chapters in post-war Germany and has already been picked as Germany's entry for Best Foreign Language Film for Hollywood's 2009 Academy Awards.
Produced by Bernd Eichinger is best known for "Downfall" in which he fueled controversy with his human portrayal of Hitler's last days.
"The Baader Meinhof Complex" is based on a beststeller book by Stefan Aust.
Aust and the filmmakers say they have paid close attention to detail, including the number of bullets used in each assassination, and tried to make an authentic account of the movement without glofifying the militants.
The film, believed to be the most expensive film ever made in Germany, opens at cinemas across the country on September 25.
The RAF is suspected of murdering 34 people, mainly senior figures in the West German establishment, between 1970 and 1991.
"If you move from the romantic idea ... into terrorism, you should realise you are kissing goodbye your own inflated ideas of ethics,"
Stefan Aust, author of the book, told Reuters.
"I believe they realised the lowliness of their doings," said Aust, a former editor of Der Spiegel newsweekly.
Also known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang" after founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, the RAF grew from the left-wing student protest and anti-Vietnam war movements in the late 1960s.
Its members were angry with their parents generation who had lived through the Nazi era and had gone on to live capitalist, and -- as they viewed it -- middle-class lives.
Figures killed by the group inlcuded Dresdner Bank head Juergen Ponto and federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback.
The peak of the group's campaign of terror was the 1977 kidnapping of industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer whom they held hostage for over a month.
Eventually he was executed; the identity of the RAF member who shot him remains a mystery.
Some 26 RAF members died during their campaign and many were sentenced to long prison terms. Baader and Meinhof were caught and committed suicide in prison. In 1998, the RAF said it was giving up its struggle and disbanded.
Many members have now been released and are working as teachers, accountants and journalists, some under new names.
"The brilliant performance by the cast and the extraordinary adaptation of the story allows a view of the early 1970s in the West Germany without glorifying the perpetrators," said a jury appointed by German Films to select its entry for the Oscars. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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