El amigo alemán

Oct 4 2012 N/A 1h 40m
Drama, Romance, War

It’s the late 1950s, and in an affluent and quietly respectable part of Buenos Aires, young Sulamit Löwenstein strikes up a friendship with her next-door neighbour Friedrich over the whereabouts of her family dog. She is the daughter of German-Jewish immigrants to Argentina, he is the son of a senior SS officer, a tragic political legacy from whose shadow both characters struggle to escape over the next three decades. Following the teenaged Friedrich to Germany, Sulamit finds him caught up in the radical politics of late-1960s student life; and she’s forced to make important decisions about her attitude to her homeland when Friedrich returns to Argentina to join the fight against the military junta.

Plot

In mid-1950s Argentina, Sulamit is the daughter of German-Jewish refugees and Friedrich is the son of German-Nazi refugees; the two are close friends as time goes by between the fall of Peron's government in 1955 and the years of prison, torture, and death in Argentina from 1976 to 1983. They grow up and go to Germany, and both get involved in the political struggles of 1968 and Friedrich, who always rejected his father's Nazi past, becomes a left-winged militant and decides to go back to Argentina to fight against the Military Government. Sulamit's love for Friedrich survives all these years, though he dedicates more time to his political commitments than to his personal feelings. But those two are destined to get together after all these years of separation and disagreements, because their love is more powerful than anything else.

Written by

Jeanine Meerapfel

Directed by

Jeanine Meerapfel

Cast

Max Riemelt, Benjamin Sadler, Celeste Cid

Crew

View crew

Production Countries

Germany, Argentina

Production Companies

Malena Films GmbH, Geißendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion (GFF), WDR

Languages

Deutsch, Español

Awards

1 win & 2 nominations

Scores
# of Votes
515
Average Rating
6.1 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA