Aimée & Jaguar

Germany

1999

125 Min

Color

1.85:1

German

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

|

PROD Hanno Huth, Günter Rohrbach

SCR Rona Munro, Max Färberböck

CAST Maria Schrader, Juliane Köhler, Johanna Wokalek, Heike Makatsch, Elisabeth Degen, Detlev Buck, Inge Keller, Kyra Mladeck, Dani Levy

MUSIC Jan A.P. Kaczmarek

Berlinale (Competition): Best Actress, Outfest (Features), Queer Lisboa

Synopsis

In 1943, while the Allies are bombing Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the capital of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women. One of them, Lilly Wust (Juliane Köhler), married and the mother of four sons, enjoys the privileges of her stature as an exemplar of Nazi motherhood. For Lily, this affair will be the most decisive experience of her life. The other woman is Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader), a beautiful Jewish woman, who works for a Nazi newspaper under a false name, feeding what she learns to underground resistance leaders. Their love fuels Felice with the hope that she will survive. A half-century later, Lilly Wust told her incredible story to writer Erica Fischer, and the book, Aimée & Jaguar immediately became a bestseller. Max Färberböck’s debut film, based on Fischer’s book, is the true story of this passionate, forbidden love affair.

The film was nominated for a 1999 Golden Globe Award and was Germany’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Both lead actresses received Silver Bears at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival.

Director

Max Färberböck

Max Färberböck, born September 22, 1950, in Degerndorf, toured Argentina and Italy with a theatre group after finishing school. He then started to study film studies at Munich’s Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF). After his graduation, Färberböck worked as a reader for Constantin Film and eventually became Peter Zadek’s assistant at Schauspielhaus Hamburg where he also worked as a dramaturg and director.

Färberböck then worked at several other German theatres (for instance in Heidelberg and in Cologne), before he turned to TV productions in 1990. He directed several episodes of the TV crime series “Der Fahnder”, won the Teleplay award at the Baden Baden TV film festival for his TV movie “Schlafende Hunde” (1992) and developed the successful TV series “Bella Block” in 1994. In the same year, he won the Grimme award for the pilot episode of “Bella Block”.

Max Färberböck made his debut on the big screen in 1999 with the drama “Aimée und Jaguar” (“Aimee and Jaguar”… read more

Max Färberböck, born September 22, 1950, in Degerndorf, toured Argentina and Italy with a theatre group after finishing school. He then started to study film studies at Munich’s Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (HFF). After his graduation, Färberböck worked as a reader for Constantin Film and eventually became Peter Zadek’s assistant at Schauspielhaus Hamburg where he also worked as a dramaturg and director.

Färberböck then worked at several other German theatres (for instance in Heidelberg and in Cologne), before he turned to TV productions in 1990. He directed several episodes of the TV crime series “Der Fahnder”, won the Teleplay award at the Baden Baden TV film festival for his TV movie “Schlafende Hunde” (1992) and developed the successful TV series “Bella Block” in 1994. In the same year, he won the Grimme award for the pilot episode of “Bella Block”.

Max Färberböck made his debut on the big screen in 1999 with the drama “Aimée und Jaguar” (“Aimee and Jaguar”). Based on a true story, the film tells the story of the lesbian love between a Jewish and a Gentile woman during the Nazi regime. “Aimée und Jaguar” premiered at the 1999 Berlinale, where Juliane Köhler and Maria Schrader won the Silver Bear as Best actresses. Furthermore, the film won the Bavarian as well as the German film award. Färberböck’s TV movie “Jenseits” also won multiple awards.

In 2003, Färberböck finished “September”, the first movie for the big screen that explicitly dealt with the terror attacks of 9/11. Unfortunately, the film was not well received by movie goers and film critics alike. After a five-year break, Färberböck returned to the big screen in 2008 with his next film “Anonyma” (“A Woman in Berlin”). The much noticed drama, based on Marta Hiller’s autobiographic novel “Eine Frau in Berlin”, tells the story of a German woman (Nina Hoss) in post-war Berlin under the Russian occupation. —filmportal.de

read less