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Saviors in the Night

Directed by: Ludi Boeken
95 Minutes, 2009

Saviors in the Night (Unter Bauern) is based on the memories of Marga Spiegel. In her narrative, published in 1965, she describes how courageous farmers in southern Munsterland, Germany hid her, her husband Siegfried, and their little daughter Karin from 1943 until 1945, saving them from deportation to the extermination camps in the East.

Without reservation, these farmers offer the refugees their protection. That this turns them into heroes would never occur to them. They are used to weathering even dangerous situations somehow, guided only by their instinct and century-old code of ethics. They risk their own lives, and, if necessary, even that of their families. And this is their story.

The film tells this story of survival with a sense for the absurd in daily life and not without the typical Westphalian humor.

Credits

Director: Ludi Boeken

Producer: Karl Baumgartner

Producer: Joachim von Mengershausen

Producer: Werner Wirsing

Cast: Veronica Ferres

Cast: Armin Rohde

Cast: Lia Perez

Cast: Margarita Broich

Cast: Martin Horn

Cast: Luisa Mix

Written by: Otto Jägersberg

Written by: Imo Moszkowicz

Written by: Heidrun Schleef

Distributor: Menemsha Films

Awards

"This third feature by Dutch helmer-producer Ludi Boeken benefits from his docu background in its realistic, no-frills style and refreshingly unsentimental treatment of the subject."

-Derek Elley, Variety

"'Saviors'' is lifted up and made special by the complexities and social crosscurrents of the people it depicts."

-Ty Burr, Boston Globe

"Gripping... Provides the kind of rollercoaster tension of a Hollywood thriller."

-Eva Fogelman, the Jewish Daily Forward