Schattenstunde

Jochen Klepper lived in Berlin during the Nazi era as a Christian writer, journalist, and poet with his Jewish wife Johanna and his stepdaughter Renate, who was also Jewish. On December 10, 1942, his wife and stepdaughter failed in their attempt to leave the former German Reich, and the deportation of the female members of the family was imminent. Faced with Adolf Eichmann's Goebbels alternative—career or marriage—Jochen Klepper made an unheard-of decision. A decision that thousands of Germans in mixed marriages made with him. So quietly that even today, few have heard of it. The film, which recounts the last hours the Klepper family spent together, is based on Jochen Klepper's extensive diary entries. The family's last conversations are sensitively interwoven with various entries from Jochen Klepper's diary. Director Benjamin Martins clearly conveys to the audience the distress and feeling of confinement that Jewish families had to endure under the Nazis. Just as the Kleppers' lives became increasingly restricted, THE SHADOW HOUR also restricts the field of vision of cinema audiences by showing the film as a square (1:1) on the screen. THE SHADOW HOUR won the First Steps Award in the feature film category in 2021 and was screened at numerous festivals, including the International Hof Film Festival. Critics praised the work as a courageous debut that masterfully combines cinematic form and ethical reflection. With its radical reduction and quiet power, THE SHADOW HOUR is an impressive example of contemporary German auteur cinema.