Year: 2024

Runtime: 124 minutes

Directed by: Andreas Dresen

Written by: Laila Stieler

Actors: Liv Lisa Fries, Johannes Hegemann, Lisa Wagner, Fritzi Haberlandt, Emma Bading, Lisa Hrdina, Tilla Krachtowil

By Sarah Manvel

The Berlinale festival has been beset by protests on all sides this year. Some of the protests are because the festival receives German government funding, as does the nation of Israel, meaning some people are conflating attending the festival as support of the current Palestinian genocide. The rest of the protests are because the festival generally invites German parliamentary politicians to attend the opening gala. This year the German parliament includes two members of a hard rightwing party, and they were only disinvited after a major hoo-ha. Considering you have to sign an explicit anti-fascist pledge in order to be allowed to attend the festival in any capacity, inviting those politicians was a remarkable act of stupidity. Fascists do not need to be platformed. 

This means the world premiere of “From Hilde, with Love,” a German movie about a pair of real-life anti-fascists, took place in an environment more fraught than usual (and I dearly wish somebody had translated director Andreas Dresen‘s speech from the stage afterwards into English, because the only word of it I understood was anti-fascist). Even without a translation the message of the movie is a timeless one — love is stronger than hate — but regardless of the precise wording of the message, this is a movie of such excellence that it’s nearly unbelievable. The expertise and thoughtfulness that went into it is just jaw-dropping, and the fact that it’s also anti-fascist is the cherry on top.

Hilde Coppi (Liv Lisa Fries) is six months pregnant when she is arrested by the Nazis in 1942 for her anti-Nazi, pro-Soviet work. She was part of a small cell of resistants including her husband Hans (Johannes Hegemann) who distributed communist leaflets throughout Berlin. They also listened to Soviet radio broadcasts, a crime punishable by death, on which German prisoners of war identified themselves and asked for messages to be sent to their families. Hilde could type so she was responsible for the letters. Not that she admitted this to her interrogators, of course, but of course her friends and Hans were tortured, a fate she was only spared because of her pregnancy. So the movie follows two separate, intertwined strands – Hilde’s time in prison as it moves forward, and Hilde and Hans’ relationship in reverse, back to how they met.

Hilde is a model prisoner, whose skills as a dental nurse mean she’s soon working in the hospital ward helping other pregnant prisoners and earning the grudging admiration of the warden, Frau Kühn (Lisa Wagner). Her childbirth is horrible and the doctor makes casual jokes about the baby dying but a good midwife (Fritzi Haberlandt) ensures both she and her little boy, also Hans, survive. Hans is allowed to meet his son and a kindly prison guard undoes his shackles and takes Frau Kühn into the hall so the little family can have a little time together. Hans’ glasses are cracked and he’s covered in bruises but he doesn’t crack himself, and neither does Hilde. The bravery that landed them in prison is nearly unbelievable; they rush around Berlin at night pasting communist messages on advertising hoardings, or use a hidden morse code machine to send messages of support to Moscow. They knew the risks and they did it anyway, and their enemies have a grudging respect for that. Certainly there’s no ideological discussions. Instead in the scene where Hilde watches her friend Ina (Emma Bading) model gowns for Eva Braun and friends, with another cell member, Grete (Lisa Hrdina) as her dresser, they talk about why the women are ordering fur coats in spring: for a trip to Moscow. Nothing else needs to be said.

There’s no romanticizing life in prison, but the flashback sequences of amiable camping holidays and motorbike rides to collect friends from prison are shot by Judith Kaufmann with a sun-kissed glow that makes these memories worth fighting for. It’s not always easy for Hilde, who’s only accepted into the group because of an original boyfriend who’s currently in prison. At first they call her ‘the governess’ because of her serious and studious nature. But when the gang is having a team meeting under cover as a Nazi book club and a local hausfrau asks about the book, Hilde is the only one who’s actually read it, and is able to deflect the lady’s attention long enough to save the day. 

For modern audiences it’s a surprise how chatty the group is about the nature of their activities – although instead nowadays people would be doing TikTok Lives of this stuff – but also of how supportive the families are of their actions. Hilde’s mother (Tilla Krachtowil) is fully aware of Hilde’s communist leaning and that she’s involved in activities too dangerous to know about. But there’s also no question that Hilde’s choices have put her child at risk, though when Frau Kühn, who has developed a grudging respect for Hilde, promises little Hans will be taken to safety we believe her. It’s awful to see something like this and think about how human it feels compared with the modern American criminal system. That’s inappropriate but the carceral state and fascism are on the rise everywhere and the ever-present surveillance state can mean it’s more dangerous now to state your mind than when it was a death sentence to leave a leaflet on the tram.

And none of the above makes clear how smoothly and expertly good all this is. Ms Fries is superb as Hilde, reserved and quiet with a core of iron, though she’s capable of melting when she’s with her baby or her man. Mr Hegemann, who’s worked in German kids’ TV and for whom this is his film debut, is equally good as the gawky Hans, seemingly less capable but just as incredibly brave, certain he has done the right thing, and willing to die for it if necessary. And the film is even more moving when you learn that this is based on a true story, and Hans Coppi, Jr., for whom this is the true story of his parents, was helped onto the stage at the Berlinale premiere to thank the actors who played his mother and father. His survival and all the years of his life is a condemnation of everything that fascism stands for, and one hopes the Berlinale learns from this awful year and this wonderful film never to make such idiotic mistakes again.