A Hidden Life

A Hidden Life (2019)

Timing: 2:54 (174 min)

7.163/10
654

7.37/10
40307

7.4/10
32000

All about film

Video 2

Photo 42

Actors and characters

Release date

2019-08-27

Country

Germany, United States

Production

Studio Babelsberg, Orange Studio, Mister Smith Entertainment, Elizabeth Bay Productions, Aceway, Alto Adige Productions

Genre

Drama, War, History

Budget

$9 000 000

Revenue

$4 645 140

Website

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/ahiddenlife/

Director

Terrence Malick

Actors

August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Maria Simon, Karin Neuhäuser, Tobias Moretti, Ulrich Matthes, Matthias Schoenaerts, Michael Nyqvist, Franz Rogowski, Karl Markovics
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Terrence Malick

Producer

Grant Hill, Marcus Loges, Dario Bergesio, Elisabeth Bentley, Josh Jeter, Henning Molfenter, Charlie Woebcken, Marcus Loges, Bill Pohlad, Christoph Fisser

Operator

Jörg Widmer

Composer

James Newton Howard

Artist

Stefanie Übelhör

Audition

Anja Dihrberg

Editing

Rehman Nizar Ali, Joe Gleason, Sebastian Jones
All team (111)

• The film is based on the correspondence between Franz Jägerstätter (1907-1943) and his wife Franziska, or Fanny.
• The pre-production period lasted 10 weeks, followed by filming (8 weeks) and almost 3 years of post-production.
• This is the final film featuring actors Mikael Nyqvist (1960-2017) and Bruno Ganz (1941-2019).
• The film's title comes from a phrase by George Eliot (English novelist, born Mary Ann Evans, 1819-1880) from her 1871-1872 novel 'Middlemarch'.
• Artificial lighting was rarely used during filming. As a rule (and this applied even to scenes filmed in prison), the crew would choose the appropriate time of day and work until the light faded.
• This story is virtually unknown outside of St. Radegund. It became known thanks to Gordon Zahn, an American who visited there in the 1970s.
• The bedroom in the film is shown as it remained in the Egerstetter house. Samples of embroidery that Fanny worked on hang on the walls. Franz and Fanny’s daughters, Maria, Rosalia, and Eloise still live in or near St. Radegund. Fanny passed away in 2013 at the age of 100.
• A special screening of the film was organized a couple of days before its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. The screening was held at the Egerstorfer's home for their daughters. According to the lead actress, the film was enjoyed by all three sisters.
• The film was shot in 8 weeks in July and August of 2016.
• Franz Jägerstätter served at the local church – he cleaned the church, rang the bell, and made preparations for weddings and funerals, without taking any payment for it.
• The idea to make this film came to Terrence Malick and producer Grant Hill while working on the war drama 'The Thin Red Line' (1998). Before starting filming in 2016, the director met with Jägerstätter's daughters.
• The film was originally titled 'Radegund'.
• Nowadays, the fields around St. Radegund are sown with corn (which was not the case in the first half of the last century) and dotted with high-voltage power lines and modern houses. The filmmakers had to search for filming locations higher in the mountains.
• The characters in the film quote the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (between 429 and 427 BC – 347 BC) – “It is better to suffer injustice than to do it” and “Nothing bad ever happens to a good person.”
• An epigraph before the script features a quote from Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) – a Danish religious philosopher, psychologist, and writer, the founder of existentialism. “When a tyrant dies, his reign ends. When a martyr dies, everything is just beginning.”
• On the wall in the living room of the Jägerstetter house are the very same clocks whose chimes Fanny listened to at 4 p.m. on August 9, 1943, at the moment of Franz's execution, when she suddenly felt his presence.