THE MEANING OF HITLER World Premiere at DOC NYC November 2020
“Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, the husband-and-wife writer- director team (Gunner Palace) who made The Meaning of Hitler, have conceived the film as a free-form, go-with-the-flow meditation on the Nazi era, made in the exploratory road-movie spirit of Werner Herzog’s recent documentaries. Like Herzog, Epperlein and Tucker listen to their impulses, trotting off to key locations — Hitler’s birthplace, the art college that rejected him, the bunker where he killed himself — and talking to the freest thinkers they can find.” Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Myth-busting at its most vital. An intellectual inquiry with burning present-day resonance… [A] rich synthesis of history and psychology… Through an exceptional collection of interview subjects, Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s dynamic documentary examines the ways we think about the Holocaust — and the ways we choose not to. Through thoughtful analysis and searching questions — all of it sharply edited by the directors — The Meaning of Hitler shines a cleansing light on a mythology that stretches across a century… An urgent warning about the blind spots that have led us to the present moment… [An] elegant and incisive film insists that there are lessons for all of us in Hitler’s story.” Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter
“The Meaning of Hitler may be the most valuable must-see of this year’s festival. Terrifying proof that fascism can happen anywhere… Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s eerie and insightful essay film burrows into the nexus of Hitler’s mythology… feels both dangerous and essential… excels at assembling an exploratory nonfiction biopic… a jagged intellectual wakeup call that cuts deep, and America can’t hear it enough.” Eric Kohn, IndieWire
“An avant-garde reckoning with the possible impossibility of grasping the totality of Hitler… a chilling inquiry into our present reality, as well as a warning about the fact that, if we’re not vigilant, our future may wind up looking a whole lot like our past.” Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
“[One of] just a handful of my favorite gems that, humbly and with little fanfare, screwed with my mind in all sorts of exciting and unanticipated ways… Normally the words ‘stylish’ and ‘sophisticated’ wouldn’t immediately spring to mind when describing a film based on a 1978 German bestseller titled The Meaning of Hitler. But Sebastian Haffner’s book… has now been strikingly reimagined for the screen. What The Meaning of Hitler ultimately ends up unmasking is nothing less than the palpable meaninglessness of evil.” Lauren Wissot, Filmmaker Magazine
“Dynamite. One of the best films I’ve seen that tackles [antisemitism].” Jordan Hoffman, The Times of Israel
“Succeeds in underscoring how the warning signs of Hitler’s psyche and his ability to co-opt a national party to his own ends were, sadly, not unique.” David Morgan, CBS News
“The Meaning of Hitler seems like an exercise in chutzpah: explaining the meaning of the face of pure evil in 90 minutes seems either arrogant or quixotic. And yet, directors Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker—thanks to their judicious choice of talking heads, ranging from Holocaust historians Saul Friedlander, Yehuda Bauer, and Deborah Lipstadt, to Holocaust revisionist David Irving and novelist Martin Amis—provide a fascinating mosaic of explanations.” Mitchell Abidor, Jewish Currents
“[An] urgent and fascinating documentary. This is a cautionary tale that cannot be told enough.” Belle McIntyre, Musée Magazine
“Epperlein and Tucker’s kaleidoscopic investigation into the past and our future takes us on the road of history to the state of the world at this moment in time.” Anne-Katrin Titze, Eye for Film interview plus review
“Despite the subject matter, the film strikes an often playful tone, taking that which horrifies and refusing to let it triumph over the human spirit.” Christopher Reed, Film Festival Today
“They manage, somehow, to keep the tone surprisingly playful, whether via jaunty transitions, clever onscreen titles, or a lively score. This never detracts from the gravitas; it just makes it all flow nicely.” Chris Reed, Hammer to Nail
“The documentary is really about the souls of nations as reflected in those pasts. For us Americans, it is about to be part of our future. Thoughtful stuff.” David Poland, Movie City News
“The Meaning of Hitler is an unforgettable documentary and should serve as a wake-up call to the hatred happening around us.” Danielle Solzman, Solzy at the Movies
“[A] provocative consideration of the lasting influence and draw of Hitler provides insight intothe resurgence of white supremacy, antisemitism, and the weaponization of history.” Carla Hay, Culture Mix
“This is an agitated, bemused, and terrified piece of work that gets under the skin of Nazism without adding to its negative glorification.” Chris Barsanti, PopMatters
“Of the extraordinarily fine offerings at this year’s DOC NYC 2020, The Meaning of Hitler,from directors Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker stands out.” Regina Weinrich, Gossip Central
Karl Marx City theatrical release in New York, Film Forum, March 29 – April 11, 2017
Karl Marx City at Movies That Matter International Film Festival March 25-29, 2017
Karl Marx City at CPH:DOX March 16-22, 2017
Karl Marx City at Guadalajara International Film Festival March 10-17, 2017
Karl Marx City at Salem Film Festival March 4, 2017
Karl Marx City at Palm Springs International Film Festival Jan 2017
Karl Marx City at the Stockholm International Film Festival Nov 2016
Karl Marx City – a “paranoid thriller” – at the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival Oct 2016
“[A] must-see… An essayistic, quietly moving look at another lost world… The movie draws you in quickly with its intelligence, its restrained emotions and its jaw-dropping period material, which includes some wildly creepy Stasi surveillance imagery.”, Manohla Dargis, The New York Times 10/10/2016
Karl Marx City at the 54th New York Film Festival Oct 2016
“Karl Marx City offers eerie parallels to the rise in surveillance today. (It) makes for a particularly resonant warning from the not-so-distant past… doesn’t have a whiff of the narcissism that plagues so many first-person documentaries. Epperlein offers Karl Marx City as her own act of painful transparency, an essential warning about what happens to societies when ordinary citizens are being watched.” Scott Tobias, Variety 9/20/2016
“A compelling family mystery wrapped in Cold War history. Dozens of documentaries have been made about the repressive Communist regimes of the former Eastern bloc, but few have been as visually striking or as deeply personal as Karl Marx City. Part espionage thriller¨ part family memoir, and part timely warning about the dangers of state surveillance. A key joy of Karl Marx City is its strong, arty aesthetic.” Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter 9/11/2016
“Karl Marx City is a stunner — an impressively inventive take on the personal doc that, with the sinister banality of its archival footage, expands from the personal to the political before concluding with a breathtakingly perfect ending.” Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine 10/14/2016
BBC AMERICA –TALKING MOVIES Christian Blauvelt (USA) – Interview with Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein 9/17/2016
CBC RADIO – THE CURRENT Piya Chattopadhyay (Canada) – interview with Petra Epperlein, aired on 9/9/2016
“So damn good… Lean, smart, quick, well-made, and unsparing, a documentary that wastes nothing and manages to say everything it wants to say in the most articulate way possible. Maybe more striking than the film’s revelations and conclusions is its sense of craft. (Epperlein and Michael Tucker) capture ‘Karl Marx City’ almost entirely in black and white, combining their own materials with Stasi surveillance footage, declassified and at their disposal as an investigative tool; the stark tones, coupled with the duo’s sharp eye for composition, clash with the film’s core ambiguities, layering aesthetic complexity to the complexity of its subject matter. The monochrome beauty enhances the unsettled atmosphere of ‘Karl Marx City’ as Epperlein’s pacing expands the scale of her quest. It’s a remarkable picture of inbound focus and outbound ambitions.” Andy Crump, The Playlist 9/9/2016
“Part mystery thriller, part autobiography, part meta-examination… [An] extraordinary film… Epperlein’s narrative is so wonderfully compelling, with mixed aspects of expectation and innuendo, that the result on screen is not simply fascinating but also wonderfully cinematic. The film manages to create a wonderful mix of sophistication and nuance while remaining accessible… It offers unique insights into a truly disturbing and extraordinary moment in time and place.” Jason Gorber, POV Magazine 9/11/2016
“As Epperlein and Tucker attempt to reconstruct the contours of a lost nation and a deceased family member, Karl Marx City is beautiful, raw, and haunting in a way that a fictionalized account like The Lives of Others could never be.” Michael Zelenko, The Verge 9/19/2016
(4 stars) “A glimpse of authoritarianism at both its most powerful and most banal… effectively melds past and present into a haze of ambiguity around the truth of the matter… The feat of editing that Karl Marx City pulls off is all the more remarkable when one rethinks the narrative through-line of the film and realizes that Epperlein’s actual quest is fairly straightforward. It’s in unfolding every detail around the questions she seeks to answer that the documentary is able to sketch this part of history, search out the gaps we have in it and interrogate which of those gaps can be filled in, and how, and what can be done about those that can’t be filled in. Both kinds will leave the viewer thinking long after the movie is finished.” **** Dan Schindel, Nonfics 9/16/2016
“ Karl Marx City is that rarest of objects: an exploration of family history that avoids solipsism and manages to connect the personal to much broader things.” Michael Sicinski, Cinema Scope 9/8/2016
“Themes of obsession, guilt, shame and societal relations predominate, and it’s all wrapped in gorgeous black-and-white photography by Tucker, truly some of the most beautiful camerawork of the entire festival.” Michael Dunaway, Paste Magazine 9/22/2016
Included in “10 Must-See Movies” at the NYFF “Shines questions of reconstruction, recovery, and secrecy through a personal prism… The filmmakers construct a meticulous inquiry into not only the logistics of this surveillance state, but the mindset that motivated it.” Jason Bailey, Flavorwire 9/30/2016
“A gorgeous black and white look at the former East Germany… the cinematography from Tucker is haunting, beautiful and utterly unshakable. The narrative is deeply personal and while the highly stylized editing and photography may not make it seem like it, it’s dense with ideas and themes that will leave any viewer begging to have a conversation.” Joshua Brunsting, Criterion Cast 10/14/2016
“Epperlein doesn’t just expose this culture of mistrust, she recreates it in this extraordinary film.” Ren Jender, Bitch Flicks 10/14/2016
“Absorbing and fascinating… Unlike many nonfiction filmmakers who frame a subject matter through a first-person point of view and yet remain a distant figure, Epperlein has a remarkable and resonant family history to pass on, in which the past feels immediate.” Kent Turner, Film-Forward 9/18/2016
“Offers an absolutely fascinating look into lives of relatively average GDR citizens and documents how the Communist system continues to generate bad karma for everyone it touched. It is definitely one of the head-and-shoulders highlights of this year’s NYFF… Very highly recommended.” Joe Bendel, J.B. Spins 10/12/2016
“The highlight of the film is its visual style. Shot almost entirely in black and white, the stunning cinematography couples with archival footage of surveillance and propaganda to strike a tone that is altogether Orwellian…‘ Karl Marx City’ is a beautifully rendered film, both aesthetically and in the depiction of its subject material, that any documentary buff would enjoy.” Philip Laudo, The Knockturnal 10/17/2016
“Very very interesting. As a Russian, I have some special thoughts about it.” Alexandra Sviridova, V Novom Svete, (USA/Russia) 10/6/2016
WORLD PREMIERE of Karl Marx City at the Toronto International Film Festival Sept 2016