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Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Fatih Akin’s coming-of-age drama Amrum which debuted in Cannes Premiere.

‘Amrum’ review

Akin and frequent collaborator Hark Bohm, whose credits include In The Fade and Goodbye Berlin, co-wrote the screenplay based on Bohm’s personal experiences growing up on Amrum Island.

Laura Tonke, Diane Kruger, and newcomer child actor Jasper Ole Billerbeck star in the story set in the final days of the Second World War in spring 1945 as a 12-year-old helps his mother feed the family. Aspeace approaches, the enemy is far closer than the youngster imagined.

Amrum marks Akin...

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to Fatih Akin’s coming-of-age drama “Amrum” after the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this month. The film will be released theatrically by Kino Lorber followed by a digital, educational and home video release.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Directed by Akin and co-written by Akin and frequent collaborator Hark Bohm (“In the Fade”), “Amrum” is based on Bohm’s own personal experiences growing up on Amrum Island.

The film takes place in 1945, with 12-year-old Nanning outside the house he shares with his mother, brother and aunt on the German island of Amrum when he hears the radio deliver the news that Adolf Hitler “has fallen.” Inside the house, Nanning’s very pregnant mother, Hille, lets out a piercing scream and then a gasp, as her water breaks on the kitchen floor and she gives birth to a baby.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to Fatih Akin’s coming-of-age drama “Amrum,” which made its world premiere as an Official Selection of this month’s Cannes Film Festival. The film will be released theatrically by Kino Lorber followed by a digital, educational and home video release. Beta Cinema is handling global sales.

Directed by Akin and co-written by Akin and frequent collaborator Hark Bohm, Amrum is based on Bohm’s own personal experiences growing up on Amrum Island. Starring Laura Tonke, Diane Kruger, and first-time child actor Jasper Ole Billerbeck, the film marks Akin’s first collaboration with Kruger since “In the Fade,” which won her Cannes’ best actress prize in 2017.

The film is set on Amrum Island in spring 1945. In the final days of the war, 12-year-old Nanning (Billerbeck) braves the treacherous sea to hunt seals, goes fishing at night, and works the nearby farm to...

In Amrum, Fatih Akin stages a sentimental conversation between himself and his mentor, the German director Hark Bohm. This project, which premiered at Cannes outside the main competition, was born of a collaboration between the two filmmakers: Bohm wrote the screenplay, which is based on memories of his youth in the waning days of World War II, and Akin directed (as well as helped edit the script). Indeed, one of the film’s intertitles calls Amrum a “Hark Bohm film by Fatih Akin.”

That’s a useful note, because it announces Amrum as atypical of the Turkish-German filmmaker’s usual offerings. It doesn’t have the thriller textures of In the Fade or the grittiness of Head-On. With its focus on the experiences of a young boy, Amrum most closely aligns with Akin’s 2016 coming-of-age drama Goodbye Berlin.

But even that film, with its surreal elements, had a touch more edge.

Their meet cute was 2012 in Cannes. Diane Kruger — Hollywood star of Troy, National Treasure and Inglourious Basterds — was on the jury. German director Fatih Akin had a documentary screening at the festival. Kruger had been an Akin superfan ever since his breakout Head-On — a gritty, violent love story about a young German-Turkish woman trying to break free of her religious, restrictive family — which won Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2004. “Fatih for me is the best German director we have, the most modern,” says Kruger, who was born and raised in Germany but began acting in French and then American movies. “I had to meet him, so I sort of invited myself to the afterparty for his film, where he was DJ-ing. I went up and said: ‘I’m a fan. If you ever have a role for me, it would be a dream to work together.’ ”

“I never forgot,” says Akin,...

Fatih Akin’s poetic and elegantly spare “Amrum” asks us to take interest in a 12-year-old member of the Hitler youth as he cares for his mother in the last days of World War II, and while we’re at it, maybe even to sympathize with him. That won’t be easy for some. But as the story progresses in its patient, perceptive rhythm on the majestically windswept German island of Amrum, it becomes clear that the film isn’t looking for sympathy for the devil — which would be an oversimplification of the purpose at the heart of Akin’s graceful and profound drama.

Co-written by octogenarian German filmmaker Hark Bohm, who was originally supposed to direct the project based on his own childhood memories, the project was ultimately passed to Akin. Under his direction, “Amrum” wants us to engage with the possibility that at such a young age, the...

It’s hard to imagine a less promising setup for a movie about a young boy’s act of kindness toward his mother than the one that’s supplied in Fatih Akin’s “Amrum,” which premiered on Thursday night at the Cannes Film Festival. The film takes place in 1945, with 12-year-old Nanning outside the house he shares with his mother, brother and aunt on the German island of Amrum when he hears the radio deliver the news that Adolph Hitler “has fallen.” Inside the house, Nanning’s very pregnant mother, Hille, lets out a piercing scream and then a gasp, as her water breaks on the kitchen floor and she gives birth to a baby.

Once the baby is born, Hille refuses to eat, suffering from a likely combination of post-partum depression and grief over the death of her Fuhrer. She insists that she only wants white bread with butter and honey,...

German-Turkish director Fatih Akin, whose “Amrum” debuts Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, is now working on two new films, a documentary, “Anatolian Dragon,” and a narrative feature, “Ghosts,” which will start shooting this summer, he has confirmed to Variety.

The documentary follows Turkish singer-songwriter Gaye Su Akyol as she works on her latest album in Berlin. Iggy Pop is a fan of her music, Akin said, and, like Pop in the 1970s, has found a creative refuge in the city.

“She had to leave Turkey after she got in trouble about her lyrics in this very misogynist society that the country has become,” Akin explained. “In the last five or six years, almost a quarter-million Turkish people, educated people, have left Turkey — doctors, scientists, you know. There has been a huge brain drain.”

Akin, whose parents moved from Turkey to Germany in the 1960s, added: “I would like to...

Beta Cinema has closed multiple international deals for Fatih Akin’s Amrum ahead of its world premiere in Cannes on Thursday, selling the German period drama to France (Dulac Distribution), Spain (A Contracorriente), Japan (Bitters End), Benelux (Cherry Pickers), Czech Republic and Slovakia (Cinemart), Former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (McF) and Brasil (Imovision).

Diane Kruger co-stars in the feature, which Akin co-wrote with German director and screenwriter Hark Bohm, based on Bohm’s own childhood memories of growing up in the final weeks of World War 2 on the secluded North Sea island of Amrum. Life is hard on the island, but for 12-year-old Nanning (newcomer Jasper Billerbeck) it feels like paradise on earth. When the war ends, however, darker secrets about his family come to the surface. Laura Tonke, Lisa Hagmeister, Kian Köppke, and Matthias Schweighöfer co-star.

Warner Bros. Pictures Germany will release Amrum in Germany-speaking territories on Oct. 9.

Akin’s...

The teaser for Fatih Akin’s “Amrum” has debuted ahead of the film’s world premiere in the Cannes Premiere section of the Cannes Film Festival. Beta Cinema is handling world sales, with Warner Bros. distributing the film in Germany and Dulac Distribution in France.

The film is set on Amrum Island, off the coast of Germany, in spring 1945. In the final days of the war, 12-year-old Nanning braves the treacherous sea to hunt seals, goes fishing at night, and works on the nearby farm to help his mother feed the family. Despite the hardship, life on the beautiful, windswept island almost feels like paradise. But when peace finally comes, it reveals a deeper threat: the enemy is far closer than he imagined.

The film is based on the childhood of German actor, writer and director Hark Bohm, who wrote the original screenplay, which was then re-written and directed by Akin.

What’s going to be this year’s “Anora”? As the Cannes Film Festival rapidly approaches, that’s the question for artistic director Thierry Fremaux and movie buffs around the world.

A month before Cannes Film Festival’s press conference, the official selection is still very much a work in progress, with little reliable information filtering through about which movies have already been invited. In fact, as of Friday — despite the volume of splashy prediction stories — it appears that only three films have so far been given a golden ticket to compete in Cannes. Variety can reveal that one of them is Jim Jarmusch’s anticipated “Father Mother Sister Brother“ starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits.

The last edition of the festival, which Fremaux had warned would be slightly weaker due to the impact of the double Hollywood strikes, proved to be anything but. Headlined by Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning “Anora,...

Germany’s film industry may have been hit hard by the economic slowdown, resulting in an overall gloomy outlook, but it’s still celebrating the biggest number ever of local films and co-productions at this year’s Berlinale and looking forward to a diverse lineup of 2025 releases, among them a number of high-profile sequels.

Compounding the sector’s overall predicament was the collapse of the federal government in November, forcing snap elections scheduled for Feb. 23. The political crisis left an ambitious reform of the country’s federal film funding system only partially implemented and a matter to be tackled by the next government.

The industry nevertheless welcomed the current government’s last-minute extension and increase of two key funding incentives in December that has ensured planning security for producers, studio operators and production service providers.

In the meantime, the local film community is cheering the strong showing of German titles at the Berlin Film Festival.

Diane Kruger is re-teaming with her In the Fade director Fatih Akin on the new German period drama Amrum, which began principal photography in Hamburg today.

The film follows a family living in a small village on Amrum Island in rural northern Germany in early 1945, in the final days of World War II. The story is based on the childhood memories of Akin’s In the Fade co-screenwriter, German author and director Hark Bohm. Bohm had initially planned to direct the film himself before handing the reins over to Akin, who co-wrote the Amrum screenplay.

The movie is a coming-of-age story of Nanning, a 12-year-old boy (played by Jasper Billerbeck) and his best friend Hermann (Kian Köppke). Laura Tonke (When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before) plays Nanning’s mother, Hille Hagener. Kruger plays Tessa Bendixen, a farmer’s wife. Matthias Schweighöfer (Oppenheimer), Detlev Buck (Same Same...

Fatih Akin’s WWII coming-of-age tale Amrum has begun shooting in Hamburg with newcomer Jasper Billerbeck joining German stars Laura Tonke and Diane Kruger in the cast.

The feature, which was first announced in 2022, is set on Germany’s North Sea island of Amrum in the spring of 1945, in the final days of World War Two.

It revolves around a 12-year-old boy called Nanning who goes seal hunting, fishing at night and toils in the fields to help his mother feed the family. When peace is declared, completely new conflicts arise, and Nanning must learn to find his own way.

The screenplay is based on the childhood memories of German director and screenwriter Hark Bohm, a long-standing friend of Akin.

The pair previously collaborated on the screenplay of Turkish-German director Akin’s award-winning 2017 feature In The Fade.

“What began as a Hark Bohm film now becomes my twelfth feature film...

Production is underway today in Hamburg on Fatih Akin’s Second World War drama Amrum, with Jasper Billerbeck, Laura Tonke and Diane Kruger leading the cast.

Beta Cinema has boarded the film and will launch international sales in Cannes next month. The film is produced by Akin’s own company bombero international with Warner Bros Film Productions Germany, in co-production with Rialto Film.

Warner Bros Pictures will release the film in Germany in September 2025.

Written by Akin and his In The Fade co-writer Hark Bohm, Amrum is set on the eponymous German island in spring 1945, as a 12-year-old boy helps...

Beta Cinema is launching international sales in Cannes for director Fatih Akin’s upcoming film “Amrum,” which starts shooting in Hamburg Monday. The film stars Jasper Billerbeck, Laura Tonke and Diane Kruger.

“Amrum” will be released in German theaters in September 2025, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

It is set on the island of Amrum in spring 1945. Seal hunting, fishing at night, toiling in the fields – nothing is too dangerous or too arduous for 12-year-old Nanning to help his mother feed the family in the final days of World War II. With the longed-for peace, however, completely new conflicts arise, and Nanning must learn to find his own way.

The story is based on the childhood memories of German director and screenwriter Hark Bohm. Akin said: “What began as a Hark Bohm film now becomes my 12th feature film and an extraordinary mission: ‘Amrum’ is the journey of young Nanning, who...

German regional fund Medenboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Mbb) has made its latest funding decisions.

Films directed by Wes Anderson, Agnieszka Holland, Emily Atef, Pablo Larrain and Karim Ainouz are among 14 projects to receive more than €5.2m in total production support from the German regional fund Medenboard Berlin-Brandenburg (Mbb) in its latest funding decision.

The largest single amount of €1.5m went to an as-yet untitled project by Wes Anderson which will see the US director continuing his long-standing collaboration with Studio Babelsberg with whom he has partnered on five previous films including The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, and Asteroid City.

The...

German-Turkish director Fatih Akin is attending the Red Sea Film Festival for the screening of “Rhinegold,” about young Iranian-Kurdish immigrant Giwar Hajabi, also known as Xatar, who is one of Germany’s most successful rap stars.

The pic was released in Germany on Oct. 27 and has grossed over 10 million, becoming Akin’s biggest hit to date.

As in many of Akin’s previous features, “Rhinegold” explores the energy released by the encounter between Middle Eastern and European culture.

The pic begins with Xatar’s musician parents escaping from Tehran during the 1979 Iranian revolution and includes scenes in Iraq, prior to the family’s departure to Europe and Xatar’s subsequent imprisonment in 2010 in a Syrian jail. Although much of the film takes place in the streets of Europe, the Middle East is a core element of its visceral energy.

Akin is fascinated by such cultural clashes and has said that...

‘In the Fade’ director is collaborating with Hamburg filmmaker Hark Bohm on the screenplay.

Fatih Akin’s next feature, Amrum, will be the first project to come under his multi-year, first look deal with Warner Media.

The In the Fade director agreed a multi-year deal with Warner Media in March covering German and Turkish language movies and series for theatrical release, TV and for HBO Max. Akin and WarnerMedia have previously worked together on three movies.

Amrum is a collaboration with fellow Hamburg filmmaker and mentor Hark Bohm, and is based on the veteran director’s childhood growing up on...

‘In the Fade’ director is collaborating with Hamburg filmmaker Hark Bohm on the screenplay.

Fatih Akin’s next feature, Amrum, will be the first project to come under his multi-year, first look deal with Warner Media.

The In the Fade director agreed a multi-year deal with Warner Media in Maruch covering German and Turkish language movies and series for theatrical release, TV and for HBO Max. Akin and WarnerMedia have previously worked together on three movies.

Amrum is a collaboration with fellow Hamburg filmmaker and mentor Hark Bohm, and is based on the veteran director’s childhood growing up on...

With his recent Diane Kruger-led terrorism drama In the Fade, Fatih Akin finally returned to the kind of global attention he earned with his break-out films Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. The German director will now, fittingly, return to Berlinale with his next film, Der Goldene Handschuh aka The Golden Glove.

The first trailer has now arrived and while it is currently absent of subtitles it shows the deranged new territory Akin is exploring. The drama, which looks to have some over-the-top comedic tones, follows the true story of a serial killer in 1970s Hamburg who killed four prostitutes. After last year’s The House That Jack Built, we’ll have to see if audiences can stomach a similar story. Starring Jonas Dassler, Margarethe Tiesel, and Hark Bohm, see the trailer and poster below.

The Golden Glove will premiere at Berlinale 2019.

The Golden Glove (Der goldene Handschuh)

Germany’s Fatih Akin turns to horror for his tenth feature, The Golden Glove, which relays the true story of a 1970s serial killer who hunted prostitutes in Hamburg’s red light district. Produced by Akin and Nurhan Sekerci-Porst through his company bombero international, the film is also a co-production with Pathe and Warner Bros. Films Productions Germany. Utilizing his regular Dp Rainer Klausmann, the cast includes Jonas Dassler, Margarethe Tiesel, Uwe Rohde, Victoria Trauttmansdorff, Marc Hosemann, Hark Bohm, Heinz Strunk and Tristan Göbel. Akin competed in Locarno with his 1998 debut Short Sharp Shock but came to prominence in 2004 when his title Head-On won the Golden Bear in Berlin.…...

German indie powerhouse The Match Factory will handle world sales on two Berlin Film Festival competition titles: German director Fatih Akin’s serial-killer chiller “The Golden Glove” and Turkish director Emin Alper’s family drama “A Tale of Three Sisters.”

Akin, a Hamburg native whose “Head-On” won the Golden Bear in 2004, is returning to the Berlinale with provocative “Glove,” which is based on a bestselling book. It chronicles the true story of Fritz Honka, a physically and psychologically scarred serial killer who murdered four women in Hamburg’s red-light district between 1970 and 1975. Akin has told Variety that the killer, played by rising German actor Jonas Dassler (“Lomo: The Language of Many Others”), used to live a couple of streets from where he grew up.

Honka picked up his victims at a dive bar called Zum Goldenen Handschuh (The Golden Glove in German), where he was a regular. The chiller’s...

Nine titles announced for Berlinale, which runs Feb 7-17.

The first films have been announced for the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival Competition and Berlinale Special sections.

The Competition line-up includes new films by Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove), François Ozon (By the Grace of God) and Denis Côté (Ghost Town Anthology).

The other three films in the strand are Marie Kreutzer’s The Ground Beneath My Feet, Angela Schanelec’s I Was at Home, but and Emin Alper’s A Tale of Three Sisters. All are world premieres except By the Grace Of God which is an international premiere.

The...

The Berlin Film Festival has revealed the first wave of titles for its competition lineup, including new films from François Ozon, Marie Kreutzer, Denis Côté and Fatih Akin. Charles Ferguson’s Watergate documentary is among the Berlinale Special titles.

The first nine Competition and Berlinale Special films were revealed today, alongside the previously announced opening film, The Kindness of Strangers by Lone Scherfig.

Festival favourites Akin (In The Fade) and Ozon (In The House) return with German-language thriller The Golden Glove and French-language drama By The Grace Of God, respectively. The former follows a serial killer who strikes fear in the hearts of residents of Hamburg during the early 1970s. The latter looks at a real-life case of sexual abuses allegedly committed by a French priest in the late 1980s. Oscar-winner Ferguson (Inside Job) will present anticipated 260-minute feature doc Watergate, which is sure to draw plenty of contemporary parallels.

Emily Atef’s chamber piece takes best film, best director and best actress amongst others.

Emily Atef’s 3 Days in Quiberon was the big winner at this year’s German Film Awards in Berlin at the weekend, taking home seven Lolas from ten nominations.

The Rohfilm Factory production received the Golden Lola for best film – with a cash prize of €500,000 - as well as statuettes for director Atef, lead actress Marie Bäumer, supporting actors Birgit Minichmayr and Robert Gwisdek, DoP Thomas W. Kiennast, and composers Christoph M. Kaiser and Julian Maas.

The chamber piece - about German-French star Romy Schneider...

Emily Atef’s film about actress Romy Schneider receives 10 nods including best film, best direction.

Emily Atef’s Berlinale Competition film 3 Days in Quiberon has dominated the nominations for this year’s German Film Awards (also known as the Lola Awards).

It scored ten nods, including best feature film, best direction, best lead actress (for Marie Bäumer), best supporting actor, best cinematography and best film score.

The Rohfilm Factory production will compete in the best feature film category with another of this year’s Berlinale competition films, Thomas Stuber’s In The Aisles, the Berlinale Special title The Silent Revolution,...

Chicago – In one of the more truthful and contemporary films of 2017, “In the Fade” is a German/French production about the fallout due to a terrorist act. What it also emphasizes is the generated hatred, frustration and waste of such acts, and its textual story is stunning and distressing.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Diane Kruger portrays the victim of terrorism in the film. She is an international actor who has appeared in American films (“Inglourious Basterds,” “National Treasure”) and completely owns the tenor of what happens in this period of her character’s life. It is a classic collaboration between her and the director/co-writer Fatih Akin, running through a horrid laundry list of dreaded emotional reactions, while also expressing the toughness and need-for-help that is necessary to survive. As a statement about terrorism, it is an ultimate one in a sense, as to where we will all end up if it continues.

Awards run, early 2018 theatrical release planned.

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to Faith Akin’s revenge drama In the Fade starring Cannes best actress winner Diane Kruger.

The film will navigate an awards-qualifying run this autumn ahead of a theatrical release in early 2018.

Kruger plays a German mother seeking revenge for the murder of her family at the hands of Neo-Nazis. Denis Moschitto, Johannes Krisch, Ulrich Tukur, Samia Chancrin, and Numan Acar also star.

“In the Fade is my own reflection of current developments in the world,” Akin, who wrote and directed, said. “On different layers it is a very personal film for me. I am honored that Magnolia will bring the movie to American audiences and I am very excited about this.” Hark Bohm co-wrote the screenplay.

Nurhan Şekerci-Porst, Akin, and Herman Weigel produced. The film is a Warner Bros Pictures presentation of a Bombero International, Warner Bros Film Productions Germany production, in co-production...

In the Fade

Director: Fatih Akin

Writer: Fatih Akin, Hark Bohm

Fatih Akin has been a fixture in German language cinema since his 2004 break out Head-On, which took home the Golden Berlin Bear.

Continue reading...

Tschick

Director: Fatih Akin

Writer: Hark Bohm

While Fatih Akin’s epic cap to his loose trilogy The Cut (2014) didn’t live up to expectations, we’re curious to see his latest, Tschick, an unexpected foray into ‘family film.’ Based on a cult novel by late writer Wolfgang Herndorfs, the story centers on 14-year-old Maik Klingenberg, part of a wealthy but dysfunctional family in Berlin. During this particular summer vacation his mom enters rehab while dad absconds on a romantic getaway with his secretary. Left to his own devices, Maik decides to take off with Tschick, a Russian immigrant classmate who shows up one day with a stolen car. The screenplay was adapated by actor/write/director Hark Bohm, who appeared in several feature by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Cast: Anand Batbileg, Tristan Gobel, Nicole Mercedes Muller

Production Co.: Lago Film

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available. Tbd (domestic) StudioCanal (international...

As our coverage from this year’s Marrakech International Film Festival continues to flow in, they’ve begun providing videos that give some sense of what it’s like to be on the ground. Following a look at Park Chan-wook’s master class, we now have excerpts from a live talk with Fatih Akin — something the writer-director, feeling he’s “not a master,” would prefer to call an interview. The moderator — who looks so much like Dean Stockwell that I’m unable to focus on much else when it cuts to him — complies, and so what follows isn’t a hoity-toity handing-down of wisdom to those who are so lucky to be in his presence, but instead an illustration of process and intent.

It’s also worth noting that, while at Marrakech, Akin told THR about his next feature, Why We Took the Car. Although the feature (known as Tschick...

Round-up of key drama deals struck at Mipcom, which is going ahead despite deadly storms.

Mipcom 2015 (Oct 5-8) is going ahead despite a severe storm causing major flooding in the Cannes area.

The storms struck the south of France on Saturday night, causing widespread flooding across the country and leaving 16 people dead.

At Mipcom, the opening night red carpet was cancelled due to the weather but the rest of the market will go on as planned, organisers said.

Despite the incelement weather deals high-end drama remains in high-demand. Below is a round-up of key deals:

The Last Panthers

SundanceTV has acquired Us broadcasting rights to The Last Panthers, the six-hour crime drama that was the opening night screening at this year’s Mipcom, with a plan to air in spring.

Starring Samantha Morton, Tahar Rahim, Goran Bogdan and John Hurt, the programme was commissioned by the UK’s Sky Atlantic and France’s Canal Plus. Studiocanal and Sky...

Round-up of key television deals struck at Mipcom.

Mipcom 2015, the TV market currently being held in Cannes (Oct 5-8), is going ahead despite a severe storm causing major flooding in the area.

The storms struck the South of France on Saturday night, causing widespread flooding across the country and leaving 16 people dead.

At Mipcom, the opening night red carpet was cancelled due to the weather but the rest of the festival will go on as planned, the organisers said.

Below is a round-up of key deals inked at the festival to date:

The Last Panthers

SundanceTV have acquired Us broadcasting rights to The Last Panthers, the six-hour crime drama that was the opening night screening at this year’s Mipcom, with a plan to air in spring. Starring Samantha Morton, Tahar Rahim, Goran Bogdan and John Hurt, the programme was commissioned by the UK’s Sky Atlantic and France’s Canal Plus. Studiocanal and Sky...

After first being mooted here in Cannes three years ago, Beta Film’s 10-part Adolf Hitler miniseries is getting closer to production. France’s TF1 has come aboard the project (working title: Hitler) which is being developed with UFA Fiction in co-production with Beta Film for Germany’s Rtl. Generation War‘s Benjamin Benedict and Joachim Kosack are producing.

Based on historian Thomas Weber’s book Hitler’s First War, it aims to shed unprecedented light on one of history’s most hated and closely-examined figures. Each episode concentrates on one chapter in his rise to power, from the end of World War I to WWII and the atrocities of the Holocaust. Using previously unseen documents from the List Regiment, in which Hitler served during the First World War, the series will look at his personality and how he was shaped into what he became.

The series is currently in...

Famed scientist Stephen Hawking to present the Stephen Finnigan-directed documentary in Cambridge.

The 33rd Cambridge Film Festival, which runs from September 19-29, is to open with documentary Hawking.

Told in his own words and by those closest to him, the film relays Professor Stephen Hawking’s journey from boyhood underachiever, to PhD genius, to being diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease and given just two years to live. Despite the constant threat of death, Hawking has risen to fame and stardom and continues to make scientific discoveries.

Review: Hawking

The professor, best-selling author (A Brief History of Time) and Cambridge resident will present the film in person on September 19.

Stephen Finnigan, BAFTA-nominated series producer of The Choir: Military Wives, directs the Channel 4 and PBS co-production, which is produced by Darlow Smithson Productions (Dsp).

It received its world premiere at SXSW in March and the UK rights have been secured by Vertigo Films. It is also...