March of Millions (2007)

Original title

Die Flucht

Directed by

Kai Wessel

Genre

drama film, war film

Country

Germany

Runtime

3h

Rated

12

Rating

4.8 of 10 from 5 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

In the winter of 1944, a countess leads a group of refugees, including prisoners of war, as they flee the Red Army in East Prussia. The story follows their struggle to survive the journey and find safety in a postwar Germany.

somberharrowinghistoricalbleakslow-burntensemelancholicsurvival-driven

What happens

March of Millions, also titled Die Flucht (The Escape), is a German television war drama film. The film stars Maria Furtwängler in the role of Lena Gräfin von Mahlenberg, the leader of a small convoy of refugees from East Prussia (including French and Russian prisoners of war and forced labourers) fleeing the advancing Red Army in the winter of 1944–1945, and trying to survive uprooted in Bavaria in the aftermath of World War II. When first broadcast by ARD in two parts, on 4 and 5 March 2007, it drew 13.5 million viewers. The production was reported to have cost €9m and to have employed over 2,000 extras. The film was controversial for portraying German war-time suffering during the evacuation of East Prussia (although a number of German atrocities were also shown or mentioned), and led to adverse comments from Marek Cichocki, the foreign policy advisor to Polish President Lech Kaczyński at the time, fearful of potential German claims to lands or property in East Prussia lost after the World War II. There have been multiple reactions from the Polish side on occasion of other films about the war. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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