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THE CLOWN AND THE FÜHRER

By Eduard CORTÉS

BENECE PRODUCCIONS - as PROD

Drama - Completed 2006

- Year of production
- 2006
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- SPAIN
- Languages
- ENGLISH, CATALAN
- Duration
- 93 mn
- Director(s)
- Eduard CORTÉS
- Writer(s)
- Eduard CORTÉS, Gerard VÁZQUEZ, Joan FONT
- Cast
- Ferran RAÑÉ, Manel BARCELÓ, Jordi MARTÍNEZ, Pere ARQUILLUÉ
- ISAN
- 0000-0002-A497-0000-H-0000-0000-N
- Producer(s)
- Xavier ATANCE (Benecé)
- Synopsis
- The German occupation of Denmark found Charlie Rivel and his family performing in Copenhagen. The Hitler regime forced him to return to Berlin to honour the contracts he had signed with theatres in the city for the following three years.
  His success was unstoppable, and he soon became one of the regime's most acclaimed stars.
  In 1944, during one of his performances at the Scala in Berlin, Krauss, a Gestapo agent, "invited" him to prepare a performance for a birthday party being organised in honour of the Führer. The situation became even more uncomfortable and complicated when Krauss revealed his admiration for the clown, and his intention to act alongside him in the circus number. Charlie Rivel and his stage mate, Witzi, were not convinced, but with intimidation in the air they had to accept the proposal against their will. Particularly Witzi, whose wife (of Jewish origin) had been murdered by the Gestapo: he could not avoid showing his deep resentment and hatred for Krauss and all he stood for.
  Witzi's deportation and the coming onto the scene of Golo, the clown who was to replace him, gives the story a new turn: Hitler's life was under threat, something that could change the course of the war and the history of mankind.
  The special interest and narrative power of THE CLOWN & THE FÜHRER gather force when we discover that the story is based on a real historical fact involving two charismatic personalities: Charlie Rivel, the great Catalan clown of international renown, and Adolf Hitler, the great dictator and probably the most universal monster.
  THE CLOWN & THE FÜHRER shows us the contrast between the gentleness and innocence of a clown trapped in the barbarity of Nazism, and invites us to reflect on the relationship between art and politics in the immense circus of our human life, with all its contradictions, struggles, frustrations and injustices.
- Beginning of shooting
- Jul 01, 2006