SUMMER OF '44 - THE LOST GENERATION
Filmfest 2017
PT: DIE FREIBADCLIQUE
OT: DIE FREIBADCLIQUE
Germany, Czech Republic 2017
Original version
(Original: German)
World Premiere
Director: Friedemann Fromm
Section: New German TV Movies
A young lad struggling with Caesar in Latin – a normal occurrence, were he not on the verge of the final medical check-up before being drafted into the Waffen-SS in the summer of 1944. Five boys ogle a pretty blonde girl in the pool, two of them try to impress her by jumping off the high tower: Boys will be boys, even as catastrophe looms. A year later, only three of them return home to a world that has thrown them to the dogs of war and now won't let them back in the door. Friedemann Fromm adapted Oliver Storz's autobiographical novel about surviving in brutal times.
Cast: Jonathan Berlin, Theo Trebs, Andreas Warmbrunn, Laurenz Lerch, Joscha Eißen
Credits
Screenplay: Friedemann Fromm
Original Material: Oliver Storz
Director of Photography: Anton Klima
Film Editor: Janina Gerkens
Composer: Annette Focks
Production Designer: Klaus-Peter Platten
Costume Design: Mirjam Muschel
Sound: Michael Busch, Tom Weber
Producer: Marc Müller-Kaldenberg
Production Company: Zieglerfilm Baden-Baden GmbH
Co-Producer: Prof Regina Ziegler, Michal Pokorný
Co-Production Company: Zieglerfilm München, MIA Film
World Sales: Beta Film GmbH
Director: Friedemann Fromm
Editor: B. Dithard, M. Hattendorf, C. Strobl, W. Voigt, S. Holtgreve, A. Etspüler
TV channel: Südwestrundfunk (SWR), ARD Degeto,Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR)
biography
Friedemann Fromm was born in Stuttgart in 1963. After high school, he attended Munich film school HFF and participated in a Master Class at the European Film Academy with Krzysztof Kieslowski in Amsterdam. He attended the Actor's Studio in NYC, where he studied under John Costopoulos. He then taught directing at Cologne media academy KHM and worked as freelance writer and director, before making his breakthrough episode CLASS STRUGGLE (1994) for the German television series TATORT (SCENE OF THE CRIME), which he also penned. His historical series DIE WÖLFE (THE WOLVES OF BERLIN, 2009) and WEISSENSEE (2010) have won numerous awards. He currently co-chairs the directing department at Hamburg Media School with Stefan Krohmer.
