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Synopsis

„I want you” is a very personal and direct documentary film about the life and work of poetess Hilde Domin: Anna Ditges, almost 70 years younger than Domin, accompanied and filmed the Grande Dame of German post-war literature during the last two years of her long and eventful life. A young film-maker discovers Hilde Domins’ lyric poetry and decides to get in touch with the celebrated poetess herself. She encounters a highly unconventional 95 year-old in an apartment full of books, roses and memories – with a life story that mirrors the last century. Hilde Domin, born in 1909, tells openly about her turbulent and troubled life: of her childhood as an assimilated Jewess in Cologne, of more than two decades spent in exile, of the return to post-war Germany and her late career as a writer. For the first time in front of a camera, she speaks about Erwin, the love of her life, and about her loneliness in old age. Carefully observing, challenging and listening to her protagonist, the author manages to capture even the most sensitive topics on film, in direct and highly expressive images. Anna Ditges, born in 1978, visited Hilde Domin regularly over a period of almost two years, until the old lady‘s death in February 2006. The two women shared everyday experiences and went travelling together – to poetry readings, on holiday, and through Domin‘s memories. The outcome of these numerous encounters is an uncommonly intimate and touching documentary: “I want you”, a filmic statement as precise and haunting as the famously straightforward poetry of Hilde Domin.

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Background

„I spent three years working on the production of „I Want You“. The first two years were the most difficult, since there was no budget and I had to cover all the production costs with my income from other jobs – apart from maintainung myslf. I also got a lot of rejections from the tv editorials at first, and it ewas not always easy to deal with this either. And then, exactly at a time when I was about to give up entirely, I was offered the co-production with WDR. It was a great relief to have the support of an editorial, of course, and then suddenly more and more tv stations began to show an interest. The film foundation Filmstiftung NRW granted their support as well. In this way, the financing problem was solved and the film could be post-produced professionally.“ (Anna Ditges)

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Crew

Screenwriter and Director:

Anna Ditges

Cinematographer:

Anna Ditges

Film Editor:

Anna Ditges

Poems and Prose read by:

Anna Thalbach

Music:

Andreas Schäfer

Sound Design and Mixing:

Roland Platz, Emil Klotzsch

Graphic Design:

Wieslaw Prus, Eva Weissenberg

Colour Correction:

Markus Ohrem

Commissioning Editors:

Felix Kuballa, Jutta Krug, Kurt Schneider, Reinhard Wulf, Rolf Bergmann

Editorial Assistant:

Sarah Kirkegaard

Trailer:

Gunar Wardenbach, Bernd Pick