New Orleans Film Festival 2009

An Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, The Baader Meinhof Complex dramatizes the history of the real-life West German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), which rose to violent action against the German political status quo in the late 1960’s. Led by Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck), a prominent journalist who forfeited her career and children to engage in anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist acts of resistance, and Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), the group's youthful members went underground, sacrificing leading normal lives, to fight for a more human society—through terrorist bombings and bloodshed. These were the radicalized children of Germany's Nazi generation and they were hell-bent on never allowing anything like Nazism to rise to power again. The man who understands them is also their hunter: the head of the German police force (Bruno Ganz). Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger (Downfall) and directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn). Presented in both German and English.