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Escape to Life: the Erika and Klaus Mann Story
Erika and Klaus Mann, the two brilliant eldest children of writer Thomas Mann, often claimed to be identical twins – ignoring the fact that they were born over a year apart, were of different genders, and didn’t look alike. Yet they shared the intimacy of twins which empowered them to live extraordinarily creative and intellectually productive lives. The film begins with a prologue which sets up their exile, their ‘escape to life’ from Nazi Germany. This takes place at a turning point in their lives, the beginning of their exile years in America, where cracks begin to appear in their relationship. Afterwards the film gradually takes the audience from their rich childhood and goes through the various episodes of their colourful lives. Erika and Klaus Mann were writers, actors, homosexuals and pacifists. In a time of great moral and political uncertainty, their moral and political convictions were clear and unwavering — while their lives were riddled with contradictions. Klaus was a writer who saw his work banned from being published during his lifetime. Erika was an actress who faced actual laws passed against her performing in Europe. Klaus was a pacifist who joined the American Army to fight against his former homeland. The film brings together a wealth of rare archive film footage, photographs, music and radio recordings, oral history interviews and dramatic fiction scenes based on the writings of Erika and Klaus Mann.
Wieland Speck
Wieland Speck is a German film director, who was the coordinator of Berlinale’s Panorama section from 1992 till 2017 and since then has become the Consultant of the Berlinale Official Programme. Born in 1951, he studied German Literature, Drama and Ethnology at the Freie Universität Berlin. He then started working on video and film projects and was a writer and publisher. In addition he has worked as an actor for several acclaimed film directors, among them David Hemmings, Robert van Ackeren, Ulrike Ottinger and Ian Pringle. In the late 1970’s he was managing director of the “Tali-Kino”, an independent art house cinema in Berlin-Kreuzberg (today’s “Moviemento”). From 1979-1981 he studied film at the San Francisco Art Institute. He is the director, author and producer of numerous TV and film productions. He has worked for several film institutions and events like the Filmhaus Berlin, the Filmbüro Baden-Württemberg, and the Berlin European Short Film Festival. He has also taught at universities and film institutions. Wieland Speck has been and continues to be a jury member at many international film festivals as well as curating film programmes and presenting lectures. He was a panel member of the Berlin State Film Fund (1990-1993) and the Hamburg Film Fund (1994-1998).
Select filmography
David, Montgomery and I, 1980
The Sound of Rapid Salvation, 1982
Westler, 1985 (feature)
Among Men, 1991
Escape to Life: the Erika and Klaus Mann Story, 2000
Andrea Weiss
Andrea Weiss is an independent documentary filmmaker, author, and professor of film/video at the City College of New York, where she co-directs the MFA Program in Film. She was the archival research director for the documentary Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community, for which she won a News & Documentary Emmy Award. She is also a historian, with a Ph.D. in History from Rutgers University. She co-founded a non-profit film company Jezebel Productions with partner Greta Schiller, in 1984. She is the author of In The Shadow of the Magic Mountain: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story, which won a Publishing Triangle Award, Paris Was a Woman, which won a Lambda Literary Award, and Vampires & Violets: Lesbians in Film. Her 2017 feature documentary Bones of Contention premiered in the 2017 Berlin Film Festival and won Best Documentary at the Side by Side Film Festival in Russia.
Select filmography
International Sweethearts of Rhythm, 1986 (documentary short)
Paris Was a Woman, 1996 (scripwriter)
A Bit of Scarlet, 1997
Seed of Sarah, 1998 (short fiction)
Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story, 2000
U.N. Fever, 2008
Bones of Contention, 2017
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Film Details:
Germany/ UK, 2000, 85’
in English and German w/ Arm./Eng. subtitles
Directors: Wieland Speck, Andrea Weiss
Screenwriter: Andrea Weiss
Producer: Greta Schiller
Cinematographers: Nuala Campbell, Uli Fischer, Ann T. Rossetti
Editor: Prisca Swan, Andrea Weiss
Narrators: Vanessa Redgrave, Corin Redgrave
Production Company: Jezebel Productions, Zero Film GmbH