The prolific director’s WWII drama will feature highly talented European actors.
Back in June, we reported that Terrence Malick had started pre-production on Radegund, hisWorld War II film about the Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector to the Nazis in 1941. Yesterday, Screen Daily provided us with some more news on Malick’s latest feature, including the cast and official synopsis. International company Mister Smith Entertainment has also signed on to distribute the film (they also worked with Malick on 2011’s Palme d’Or winner, The Tree of Life).
It was already known that Radegund will star August Diehl (Inglorious Basterds) as Jägerstätter, and Screen Daily revealed that it will also star Valerie Pachner, Matthias Shoenaerts (A Bigger Splash), Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire), Martin Wuttke (also Inglorious Basterds – as Hitler), Maria Simon, Karin Neuhäuser and Alexander Fehling. This is a cast full of incredibly talented European actors, many of whom are no strangers to acting in historical – specifically World War II – films.
The crew completed principal photography at the end of August, after shooting in Austria, Italy, and Studio Babelsberg in Germany. Here is the synopsis posted by Screen Daily:
Opening at Jägerstätter’s home in the idyllic Austrian countryside, the film follows Franz and his wife Fani along their path of resistance. Told through real wartime letters, this love story finds the couple in conflict with the members of their close-knit town, the church, their government, and even their friends – all of which brings them to a dramatic choice.
This will be Malick’s second WWII film, the first being his acclaimed 1998 drama, The Thin Red Line. It seems that within the past few years, Malick has been going through a particularly rich creative patch. In 2015, he directed the eccentric drama Knight of Cups, followed by 2016’s poetic IMAX documentary Voyage of Time, a dream project which he had been working on for forty years. His next film, Song to Song, will premiere at the South by Southwest film festival in March. It is reportedly a love story set among the Austin, Texas music scene.
It is a wonder that he has time to write and direct all of these projects, and even more admirable is that they are always interesting. Malick is a rare director who consistently experiments with the medium – with images, sounds, and narratives. He is unpredictable, with a unique style and way of telling stories. Malick typically writes and creates as production goes along. He shoots footage, and has a general idea of what the situation is, but only once he is in the editing room do his films really come together. He has directed 10 feature films since 1973 (his first feature is the classic Badlands), and has the honor of being one of the few “New Hollywood” directors to still be making films today. At this point, his peers include Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg – none of them could be more different from one another, but they all began their careers in the early 70s, bringing youthful and intellectual stories to Hollywood. All three of these directors have been navigating the world of Hollywood filmmaking for upwards of forty years now.
Radegund is set to be released in 2018, and will be up for sale at the upcoming European Film Market at Berlinale.
Related Topics: History
