Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe

The film tells Stefan Zweig's years of exile in six chapters. It opens at a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro in 1936 and ends in 1942. Each chapter takes place on a single day in a single location: a writers' congress, a field, a birthday, a railway station. Maria Schrader's central choice is contestable and it is what holds the film up: Zweig's refusal to speak publicly about Nazism. He is constantly asked for a statement, a signature, a sentence, and he chooses silence. The film neither vindicates nor condemns him. It shows what the silence cost. Josef Hader plays Zweig, with Barbara Sukowa among the cast. The scenes are built from period photographs, in long fixed shots. The difficulty is the large jumps of time between chapters, the near absence of incident, and a deliberate emotional distance. Who it is for: viewers drawn to literature and stories of exile. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a conventional biopic.