Miss Flicks

Andreas Dresen on directing his moving drama From Hilde, With Love

From Hilde, With Love is a powerful and poignant film about the anti-Nazi resistance activist Hilde Coppi.

The dental assistant falls in love with Hans Coppi and helps him and his friends communicate with the Russians via radio, and print and distribute anti-war leaflets and posters. They were both arrested in 1942, while Hilde was pregnant with their son, and she gave birth to Hans Coppi Jr. during her stay in prison.

Andreas Dresen‘s film is set between two timelines – her present in the cold and stark prison and flashbacks to a sunnier, happier time when she was falling in love with Hans and carrying out illegal activities.

We spoke with the German director to discuss Coppi Jr.’s involvement with the film and what it was like working with Lisa Liv Fries and many babies.

When you watch the finished film back, what scene or sequence or moment are you the most proud of?

Oh, (it’s) difficult to say because it’s such a tragic, emotional story so we had so many very emotional moments on the set. Of course, there were not only tears in front of the camera. But there are some very moving parts of the story. To be honest, the scene where Hilde is giving birth to her baby boy was very difficult to shoot, even very hard to stand for the actress and for all of us because (it’s) so powerful and full of energy, but also, in that case, full of positive energy, because a new life is starting. Maybe for that reason, this is the sequence I like the most from the way of filmmaking and especially also from the way of acting by Liv Lisa Fries.

I was actually going to mention that scene later on because it’s so visceral and uncomfortable to watch. How did you and Liv approach that scene going into it?

The scene was, from the beginning, very important for us. From that moment on, where Hilde is giving birth to the little Hans, her whole life changes because she gets empowered by her baby… and she starts also to change her life in prison because she feels she’s not only a victim of a system but she’s responsible for someone else. And in that case, not only for her baby boy but also for the other prisoners. She starts to help other people, and more and more she changes from the very shy person she is in the beginning of the movie to a more and more powerful woman. For that reason, that scene was so important for us. Not only in the movie but in reality. We know from our research that moment was so important because the moment of the birth of little Hans was a very powerful fight for Hilde… even (just the fact that she) survived that moment. For that reason, it was important to show it so long in our movie.

The bond between Hilde and her son is a huge element of the film and it’s the most moving aspect. This means Liv has to work with a lot of babies. What was it like to work with babies?

I think we had five or six because, as you know, working with babies is very difficult because, for me, as a director, they do not follow what I’m saying. I can say whatever I want, and sometimes they want to sleep, sometimes they want to eat or just cry. Of course, all of that we needed in the movie, but when we had the babies on the set, they did not follow my instructions. So for that reason, we had always two or three babies on the set to change them. Sometimes we change a baby in the middle of a scene. I hope nobody recognises that. But if you get the right moment, then it is so sweet and so overwhelming. Of course, for Liv, it was very difficult because she just had to follow the intentions of her little partner. When I see the result, I really like it, but I would not prefer to do it again.

That’s understandable!

Because we had not so many days of shooting, just 33, and if you can’t go on because the baby is crying, you cannot do something against it, of course.

I read that Liv met with Hans Coppi Jr. as part of her preparation. Did you have a lot of meetings with him before you made the film?

Of course, he was our most important partner. It started with the development of the screenplay when Laila Stieler met him, and then of course I came up and then Liv as well. I was more often with him. It was very important to have him because he did, during his whole lifetime, a lot of research, not only about the story about his parents but also about the story of the special groups, the so-called Red Orchestra. On the other hand, it was very emotional, as you could imagine, as I couldn’t get closer to his mother than meeting him. He’s a very tender, friendly, tall guy, and I had always the feeling that he’s so fragile. That there’s so much similarity to maybe the way his mother was, I imagine. It was very touching meeting him and it was very touching showing him the movie.

*SPOILERS! If you haven’t seen the film and don’t know the real story, please skip the remaining questions*

Did he come to set or anything like that? Or did he just see it for the first time when you premiered it at Berlin?

He was one day at set but this was not during the very hard scenes. He was there when we did that little fashion show because I didn’t want him to be there when we were shooting the execution or something, because that isn’t possible. He was there and he met some of the actresses as well.

But then I showed him the film when it was nearly finished during the editing process. He came up with his wife and some friends, maybe to protect himself, and it was very emotional for him. Of course, he’s a part of the story of his parents, but on the other hand, he did not know them. He was eight months old when Hilde was executed. So it was like he had the possibility to be a first-time witness of the story of his parents, to take part in that, to get close to that love story. This is something else than just to read about them; to watch that on screen.

When we had the premiere of the movie during the Berlin Film Festival… I took him on stage after the screening and he got standing ovations and he raised his fist to the sky of the cinema. I think it was a moment of dignity, or getting back dignity, not only for his parents but also for him. I started to cry, and many other people as well, because these are the moments I am a filmmaker for. That was very, very emotional with him.

I can imagine. Did he speak the final bit that Hans Coppi Jr. says?

Yes, this is him.

Did he help write those lines?

This was a part of some interviews we did during the research and Laila, the screenplay writer, wrote that in the screenplay and we started to reproduce it for the finalised movie. Of course, doing that was also very emotional because sometimes when you are shooting, you know that this is a story invented by the screenplay writer, but in (this) case, it is reality. For that reason, it was hard to stand sometimes…. Meeting him and producing together these final lines of the movie brought that feeling back to me that this is reality. It was a reality for the whole life of Hans Coppi Jr.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

From Hilde, With Love will be in cinemas from Friday 27th June. Read my review here.