JIFF: The Red Orchestra

“Fascinating, complex documentary on anti-Nazi resistance spy cells, including Jewish women, primarily Communists, who should be more known and how Cold War kept them unknown.” - Maven’s Nest

This captivating film re-examines the story of the Red Orchestra, the most important resistance network in Nazi Germany. The leading figures of the group included Leopold Trepper, who was Jewish, and Harro Schulze-Boysen, who gathered military secrets to share with the Soviets. In 1942, Hitler’s henchmen were able to track down most of the group by picking up radio transmissions.

The legacy of this extraordinary tale has long been compromised by contrasting viewpoints and politically tinged filmic interpretations from East and West Germany. Director Carl-Ludwig Rettinger illustrates this by carefully excerpting feature films made in the early 1970s and interspersing them with interviews with the descendants of the group’s members, offering a fresh approach and a well-rounded historical account.

Co-presented by Goethe-Institut Australia. 

Rating

E

Language

German, French, English, Hebrew

Cast

Yehudit Kafri, Lital Levin, Rebecca Donn

Director

Carl-Ludwig Rettinger