Synopsis

A liberal and progressive family in 1920s Germany is a family in danger. Nazism is a rapidly spreading disease, even in unsuspecting places like the Lang psychiatric clinic. The eldest son, Karl, is a Nazi from the very beginning, participating in the Munich Putsch at a young age and becoming a party member as soon as he can, with party card number 690. At home, they are ashamed of him, but his rise has begun: that card is equivalent to an instrument of power, the pass that will lead Karl to the highest levels of the state. It seems like the trigger for a novel about the Third Reich, but it is the story—true, remembered, passed down, and then reinvented—of Alessio Cremonini's ancestors. His grandfather Bruno is the other son, Karl's younger brother. And everything he went through, he carried within him to the end, like a secret to be spoken of as little as possible to protect the living and the dead. Yet that story has not been lost: starting from a diary discovered by chance, a bundle of letters, and some old footage shot by his grandfather, it is his grandson, the filmmaker, who has collected it. As a boy, he bombarded him with questions and now reconstructs the framework of family and collective memory. Alessio Cremonini moves on the page as if behind the camera: now that everyone is asleep, along with their impulses, their battles, and their guilt, what unfolds before his eyes is the great film of History with a capital H.