Bonhoeffer | |
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Directed by | Todd Komarnicki |
Written by | Todd Komarnicki |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | John Mathieson |
Edited by | Blu Murray |
Music by | Antonio Pinto Gabriel Ferreira |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Angel Studios |
Release date |
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Running time | 132 minutes [1] |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Box office | $2.6 million [2] |
Bonhoeffer (released as Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.) is a 2024 historical drama thriller film about the German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer, written, produced and directed by Todd Komarnicki. It stars Jonas Dassler, August Diehl, David Jonsson, Flula Borg, Moritz Bleibtreu, and Clarke Peters.
The film was released in the United States on November 22, 2024.
Bonhoeffer caused controversy before its release. In addition to numerous historical inaccuracies and misleading marketing, the film was accused of promoting viewpoints of the Christian right, including conspiracy theories. [3] [4] [5] Descendants of Dietrich Bonhoeffer distanced themselves from the film. [6]
Set in 1940s Berlin, it dramatizes the life of German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who stood up to the Nazis during the Third Reich. [7]
In 2018, Komarnicki discussed shooting the film, then titled God's Spy, describing it as a "profound and pretty untold story of heroism from World War II." [8]
In January 2023, Jonas Dassler was confirmed in the role of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Flula Borg, David Jonsson, August Diehl, and Moritz Bleibtreu were confirmed as cast. Cinematographer John Mathieson and production designer John Beard were also revealed to be on-board the project. [9]
Principal photography took place in Ireland in locations such as counties Limerick, [10] Clare and Tipperary, [11] and St Fin Barre's Cathedral in Cork. [12] [13] Filming also took place in Belgium, in Brussels, Liege, [14] and Spa. [15] According to Variety filming wrapped before March 2023. [16]
In November 2023, Angel Studios acquired worldwide rights to the film, which had been retitled from God's Spy to Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin. [17] It was released in the United States on November 22, 2024. [18]
Bonhoeffer made $2.3 million from 1,900 theaters on its first day. [19]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 59% of 27 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. [20] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. [19]
In a positive review, Joe Leydon of Variety wrote, "If it had been released just two years ago, Bonhoeffer might have come across as simply the latest in a long line of respectable but predictable period dramas about brave Germans who dared to stand up to the Nazi regime. Today, however, the movie feels more like an uncomfortably timely cautionary tale with unsettling echoes of current events." [21]
In the German weekly Die Zeit , experts on Bonhoeffer, including presidents of the International Bonhoeffer Society and the publishers of Bonhoeffer's work in German and English, accuse the movie of abusing Bonhoeffer's life in order to promote Christian nationalism. [4] The film's slogan, "How far will you go to stand up for what's right?", is not a question Bonhoeffer asked, they write. On the same page of Die Zeit, Bonhoeffer's grandnephew Tobias Korenke calls ads for the film that depict Bonhoeffer holding a pistol an outrageous reversal of history. [22]
The International Bonhoeffer Society released a statement in which several actors involved, including Jonas Dassler, August Diehl and David Jonsson, condemned the film's appropriation by Christian nationalists. [23] The signatories criticised the misuse of Bonhoeffer's life and legacy by right-wing extremists. [24]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, neo-orthodox theologian and anti-Nazi dissident who was a key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential; his 1937 book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of Jews. He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel Prison for 1½ years. Later, he was transferred to Flossenbürg concentration camp.
Alfred Friedrich Delp was a German Jesuit priest and philosopher of the German Resistance. A member of the inner Kreisau Circle resistance group, he is considered a significant figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism. Falsely implicated in the failed 1944 July Plot to overthrow Adolf Hitler, Delp was arrested and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1945.
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich was a German-born American actress and singer whose career spanned nearly 7 decades.
Hans Paul Oster was a general in the Wehrmacht and a leading figure of the anti-Nazi German resistance from 1938 to 1943. As deputy head of the counter-espionage bureau in the Abwehr, Oster was in a good position to conduct resistance operations under the guise of intelligence work.
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University. Columbia University lists UTS among its affiliate schools, alongside Barnard College and Teachers College. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's constituent faculty of theology. In 1964, UTS also established an affiliation with the neighboring Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Despite its affiliation with Columbia University, UTS is an independent institution with its own administration and Board of Trustees. UTS confers the following degrees: Master of Divinity (MDiv), Master of Divinity & Social Work dual degree (MDSW), Master of Arts in religion (MAR), Master of Arts in Social Justice (MASJ), Master of Sacred Theology (STM), Doctor of Ministry (DMin), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
The Bethel Foundation, officially the Bodelschwingh Foundation Bethel is a diaconal psychiatric hospital in Bethel, formerly a town, today a neighbourhood of Bielefeld, Germany.
Eberhard Bethge was a German theologian and pastor, best known for being the close friend and biographer of the theologian and anti-Nazi Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Justus von Dohnányi is a German actor, best known for portraying Wilhelm Burgdorf in 2004 film Downfall.
Falk Harnack was a German director and screenwriter. During Germany's Nazi era, he was also active with the German Resistance and toward the end of World War II, the partisans in Greece. Harnack was from a family of scholars, artists and scientists, several of whom were active in the anti-Nazi Resistance and paid with their lives.
Eric Metaxas is an American author, speaker, and conservative radio host. He has written three biographies, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery about William Wilberforce (2007), Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy about Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011), and Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017). He also published a memoir, Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life (2021) as well as several books, including If You Can Keep it (2017) and Letter to the American Church (2022). He has also written humor, children's books and scripts for VeggieTales.
Emilie Amalie Charlotte "Emmi" Bonhoeffer was the wife of anti-Hitler activist Klaus Bonhoeffer and sister-in-law of theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. She married Bonhoeffer on 3 September 1930.
Flula Borg is a German actor, comedian, and musician. Borg's acting career includes roles in feature films, including Pitch Perfect 2 and The Suicide Squad, as well as in a number of television shows, including Curb Your Enthusiasm,The Good Place, Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin, and The Rookie. He has made multiple appearances on Conan and has participated in a number of other collaborations with Conan O'Brien.
Ethics is an unfinished book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that was edited and published after his death by Eberhard Bethge in 1949. Bonhoeffer worked on the book in the early 1940s and intended it to be his magnum opus. At the time of writing, he was a double agent; he was working for Abwehr, Nazi Germany's military intelligence organization but was simultaneously involved in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The central theme of Ethics is Christlikeness. The arguments in the book are informed by Lutheran Christology and are influenced by Bonhoeffer's participation in the German resistance to Nazism. Ethics is commonly compared to Bonhoeffer's earlier book The Cost of Discipleship, with scholars debating the extent to which Bonhoeffer's views on Christian ethics changed between his writing of the two books. In The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John W. de Gruchy argues that Ethics evinces more nuance than Bonhoeffer's earlier writings. In 2012, David P. Gushee, director of Mercer University's Center for Theology and Public Life, named Ethics one of the five best books about patriotism.
Todd Komarnicki is an American playwright, novelist, screenwriter, director, and producer.
Werner Koch was a German pastor, evangelical-reformist theologian and journalist. Through his early involvement with the Confessing Church he came to wider prominence as an opponent of the Nazi government, spending time in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Jonas Dassler is a German stage and film actor.
Saints and Villains is a 1998 novel by Denise Giardina. It is a fictionalized biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor who opposed fascism, became involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler, and was ultimately hanged by the Nazis. Saints and Villains was awarded the Boston Book Review fiction prize and was semifinalist for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin is an American musical comedy television series developed by Megan Amram and Elizabeth Banks based on characters created by Kay Cannon. It is a television series spin-off of the film series Pitch Perfect. The series premiered on Peacock on November 23, 2022. In January 2023, the series was renewed for a second season. In September 2023, Peacock decided not to move forward with the second season due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike and the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike.
A Sacrifice is a 2024 psychological thriller drama film written and directed by Jordan Scott, and starring Eric Bana, Sadie Sink, and Sylvia Hoeks. A co-production between Germany and United States, the film is an adaptation of Nicholas Hogg's 2015 novel Tokyo.
My Spy: The Eternal City is a 2024 American action comedy film directed by Pete Segal, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jon and Eric Hoeber. A sequel to the 2020 film My Spy, it stars Dave Bautista, Chloe Coleman, Kristen Schaal, and Ken Jeong reprising their roles from the previous film, with Flula Borg, Craig Robinson, and Anna Faris joining the main cast.