Sony Classics Picks Up ’13 Minutes’ About Failed Hitler Assassination – Berlin
Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American and Latin American rights to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 13 Minutes from Beta Cinema. The film is playing out of competition at the Berlin Film Festival. Hirschbiegel directed the Oscar-nominated Adolf Hitler film Downfall, and 13 Minutes marks the director’s return to Germany. 13 Minutes marks the sixth collaboration between Beta Cinema and SPC. Their previous titles include the foreign language Oscar winners The Lives of Others and The Counterfeiters as well as Oscar nominee In Darkness.
The film follows Georg Elser who built a bomb intended to take out Hitler and his henchman. However, he needed 13 minutes more in order for the bomb to work. Hitler left the scene of the attempted assassination earlier than expected on November 8, 1939 – leaving Elser, who was originally a carpenter from Königsbronn in Swabia, to fail catastrophically. 13 Minutes stars Christian Friedel (The White Ribbon), Katharina Schüttler (Generation War), Burghart Klaußner (The White Ribbon) and Johann von Bülow (Labyrinth of Lies).
“I am overjoyed and very, very proud that Sony Pictures Classics, for me the crown jewel of foreign language and indie film distributors, will bring 13 Minutes to the American audiences who I am sure will come to love this exceptionally free spirited and brave man Georg Elser,” stated director Oliver Hirschbiegel in a statement.
“60 years after the end of WWII there continues to be extraordinary stories from that period and 13 MINUTES is one of those stories. Oliver Hirschbiegel is a gifted storyteller, whose film we are proud to bring to the public, alongside Dirk, Thorsten and our friends at Beta, with whom we’ve shared so many wonderful films over the years,” added Sony Pictures Classics.
“I’m so am thrilled that SPC have chosen to distribute 13 MINUTES. We could not be in better hands,” said Beta Cinema’s Managing Director Dirk Schuerhoff, who negotiated the deal for the film.
13 Minutes is produced by Lucky Bird Pictures in coproduction with SWR, ARD Degeto, BR, WDR, ARTE, Delphi Medien and Philipp film production. Producers are Boris Ausserer, Oliver Schündler (Lucky Bird) and Fred Breinersdorfer (Delphi).
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