After WWII, a group of abandoned German children sets out on a journey during which their ingrained support of Hitler confronts a new reality.
Spring 1945 and the German resistance collapses. As the Allied forces sweep across the Motherland, five children embark on a 900-kilometre journey. With their Nazi father and mother imprisoned by American and Russian forces, Lore takes charge of her younger brothers and sister. On the road, the children struggle to survive the challenging postwar conditions as Lore begins to understand the reality and consequences of her Nazi parents’ actions and their direct knowledge and support of the atrocities of the Holocaust. The children meet the intriguing and mysterious Thomas, a Jewish refugee seemingly with no past. He follows the children through forest and field, and slowly works himself into their confidence, which shatters the world as they know it.
»Albert Speer’s children stated they could never ask their father about the Holocaust and his role in Germany’s slave labor program. (...) His third son Arnold stated simply, 'I never asked him anything connected to the Third Reich.' They didn’t ask because they couldn’t bear the answers. The lies or the truth.« (Cate Shortland)
Cate Shortland
Born in 1968 in Temora, Australia, Shortland graduated in fine art from the Sydney University before studying directing at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. She has directed several short films, which earned her multiple awards. In 2004, she wrote and directed her first feature film, Somersault, starring Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington. At the same time she also wrote and directed television shows. Following The Silence, a TV-film, Lore is her second feature film.