13 Minutes
| 13 Minutes | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | Oliver Hirschbiegel |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | |
| Starring | Christian Friedel |
| Music by | David Holmes |
| Cinematography | Judith Kaufmann |
| Edited by | Alexander Dittner |
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Production
companies |
Lucky Bird Pictures
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| Distributed by | NFP marketing & distribution |
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Release date
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Running time
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114 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
13 Minutes (German: Elser – Er hätte die Welt verändert) is a 2015 German drama film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel that tells the true story of Georg Elser's failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in November 1939. The title of the film is drawn from the fact that Elser's bomb detonated in a venue that the Fuhrer had left just 13 minutes before.
It was screened out of competition at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival. It was one of eight films shortlisted by Germany to be their submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, but it lost out to Labyrinth of Lies.
In November 1939, after planting a bomb inside a column of a Munich bierkeller, Georg Elser (Christian Friedel) attempts to cross into neutral Switzerland but is caught at the border. His home-made bomb detonates but misses killing Adolf Hitler, the German leader, by just 13 minutes.
The German security services find incriminating evidence on Elser and link him to the assassination attempt. They believe Elser must have been working with a group of conspirators and torture Elser to find this information. They also round up members of his family from his home village, including Else Härlen (Katharina Schüttler), a married woman Elser has been seeing.
When Else Härlen is brought before Elser, he fears for her life and tells the police chief Arthur Nebe (Burghart Klaußner) and Gestapo head Heinrich Müller (Johann von Bülow) that he acted alone, procuring detonators from a steel factory and stealing dynamite from a nearby quarry. He outlines the two clockwork mechanisms he built to time the explosion and hopefully kill Hitler as he made a speech. Still believing Elser could not have attempted the assassination alone he once more tortured using drugs (Pervitin) but with the same result as before - he confirms acted alone.
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Wikipedia