Berlin 2006: Is Dresden Burning?
"German filmmakers have tackled the touchy subject of whether the Allied firebombing of Dresden at the end of World War Two was a ‘war crime’ with a carefully balanced melodrama that got its worldwide premiere on Monday.
"Showing the German point of view of anything in World War Two is always likely to cause a stir — and that’s precisely what the makers of Dresden said they want to achieve.
"Dresden, which premiered at the European Film Market at the Berlin Film Festival, quickly reopened old wounds about what many Germans privately call a war crime — and even act of terror." Erik Kirschbaum via Reuters.
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Directed by Roland Suso Richter, the made-for-TV miniseries Dresden stars Marie Bäumer, Susanne Bormann, Michael Brandner, Andreas Günther, Jürgen Heinrich, Heiner Lauterbach, and John Light. Thirty-five thousand people died as a result of the fire-bombing of the German city.
When I was in Dresden in the early 1990s, I visited the ruins of a church, left standing as a symbol of the horrors of war. The skeleton of that building remains one of the most haunting images I carry in my memory. “Good” war or “bad” war, the incinerated bodies and cities in ruins are ultimately all the same.
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Tags: Berlin 2006, Berlin Film Festival, Dresden, Film Festivals, Political Movies, Roland Suso Richter, War Movies
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2 Responses to “Berlin 2006: Is Dresden Burning?”
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I’d never heard of this film about the Dresden bombing. Now I have to search for it online. I wonder if it’s out on DVD.
I am french.My motherly family suffered very much from german abuse during the nazismus occupation in France in the time of WWII, and yet,on the other side my fatherly family was from Dresden (some people of my family have been always living in Dresden…)There are sometimes necessary wars against barbary, but they are never clean or human.In France also many people add with german abuse had to endure terrible bombing by allies struggling against Hitler ’s Forces! Yes Germany suffered very much of bombing but please never forget that Hitler and Germans were first responsible of this terrible war and consequences! I know what I am speaking about.
Nethertheless I would like very much to see this film because Dresden is a part of my heart.
E.CAUBET-BACHEM