A story of survival during the war, of a great love and the dream of bringing Hollywood to Berlin
Stettin, 1945. Having returned from the vastness of Russia and Uzbekistan, where his family survived both the war and Nazi persecution, Artur Brauner makes plans for the future. At the train station, he runs into a young woman – Maria, who survived with wrong papers and her hair dyed blond. Artur falls in love with her, and calls after her when leaving, 'See you in Berlin, then…' They do, in fact, meet again, and get married in November 1946, in a displaced persons camp in Heidenheim in Swabia.
Artur becomes one of the greatest film producers in Germany, and works with the big stars of the era and brings the great film directors Robert Siodmak and Fritz Lang back to Berlin. At his side all the while, he has 'The best wife in the world', Maria Brauner.
But as the son of a Jewish timber merchant, he is unable to shake off the past. The Holocaust is a theme he returns to again and again – from his first film 'Morituri' to 'Die Spaziergängerin von Sanssouci', the last film he made, featuring Romy Schneider.
Here, his daughter Alice Brauner tells the story of her extraordinary parents, tracing an arc from their childhood in Poland and the turmoil of the war and their new beginning in Germany to the more recent past. It is a story about the power of love, the big screen, and about how dreams are realised – despite everything.
