Why ‘From Hilde, With Love’ Director Made Nazi-Era Berlin Seem Almost ‘Normal’: ‘I Wanted to Bring It Closer to Our Reality’
variety.comLeo Barraclough International Features Editor When Laila Stieler’s script for “From Hilde, With Love,” which world premiered Saturday in competition at the Berlinale, first came to director Andreas Dresen he was a little reluctant to take the project on.
The issue was not the script but the subject-matter: set in Nazi-era Berlin, “From Hilde, With Love” is a love story about two real life members of the pro-Communist, German resistance movement known as the Red Orchestra, Hilde and Hans Coppi.
More than 50 members of the group were guillotined in Berlin’s Plötzensee Prison between 1942 and 1943, including the Coppis.
Hilde gave birth to her son in prison. He is alive today and was consulted about the production. “I was a little bit afraid of doing these films about Nazi times, because it’s always in sepia colors, you know, very historical, very artificial always, and this is not the style of cinema I like,” he tells Variety. “But when I read [the script], with that wonderful character [Hilde], I immediately fell in love with that woman because she’s so humble, so shy, and she would never have called herself a resistance fighter.
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