Amen. (2002)

Director:

Costa-Gavras

Writers:

Costa-Gavras (writer)
Jean-Claude Grumberg (writer)

Release Date:

27 February 2002 (France)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

During WWII SS officer Kurt Gerstein tries to inform Pope Pius XII about Jews being sent to concentration camps. Young Jesuit priest Riccardo Fontana gives him a hand.

Plot Keywords:

SS | Priest | Jesuit | Pope | SS Officer

Awards:

2 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Ulrich Tukur	...	Kurt Gerstein
Mathieu Kassovitz	...	Riccardo Fontana
Ulrich Mühe	...	Doctor
Michel Duchaussoy	...	Cardinal
Ion Caramitru	...	Count Fontana
Marcel Iures	...	Pope
Friedrich von Thun	...	Gerstein's Father
Antje Schmidt	...	Mrs. Gerstein
Hanns Zischler	...	Grawitz
Sebastian Koch	...	Höss
Erich Hallhuber	...	Von Rutta
Burkhard Heyl	...	Director
Angus MacInnes	...	Tittman
Bernd Fischerauer	...	Bishop von Galen
Pierre Franckh	...	Pastor Wehr

Also Known As:

Amen (France)
Der Stellvertreter (Germany)
Eyewitness
Le vicaire (France) (working title)
Aamen. Lopullinen ratkaisu (Finland) [fi]
Amém (Brazil) (festival title) [pt]
Amén (Mexico) [es]
Amén. (Spain) [es]
Amen. (Argentina) [es]
Amin (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Amin. (Greece) [el]

Runtime:

132 min

Country:

France | Germany | Romania

Language:

English | French | Italian | German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-13 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Germany:12 | Netherlands:12 | Peru:14 | Singapore:NC-16 (re-rating) | Spain:13 | UK:PG | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Bucharest, Romania

Company:

Canal+

Trivia:

The Vatican did not give a permission to shoot the film in their buildings. After searching a scenery of adequate size for the scenes taking place in the Vatican, Costa-Gavras finally chose Europe's largest building, the House of the People (Casa Poporului) in Bucharest. Some of the outdoor scenes were shot in Mogosoaia Palace, some fourteen kilometers northwest of Bucharest.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In one of the scenes they say that the Treblinka camp is out of gas, referring to Zyklon B. Treblinka didn't use Zyklon B, instead they used carbon monoxide.

Quotes:

Karl: In these heroic times, have you acquired some title or some kind of rank?
Kurt Gerstein: Lieutenant of the Waffen-SS.
Karl: Go to the SS Transportation Department. Thanks for your visit.

In Europe as in Argentina.

The new movie from Costa-Gavras is as believable as his former ones: Z, The Confession, State of Siege, Missing. Perhaps his tale about the role of the Catholic Church can offer some doubts to Europeans and North-Americans subscribers of IMDB, but people who lived in Argentina during the last military dictatorship (1976-1983) can agree that there are coherency. In my country we had a lot of missing or killed Catholic priests and nuns. Riccardo Fontana represents them. Some bishops (De Nevares, Hesayne, Novak, perhaps another one) fought for human rights. But the official Church, including the papal nuncio, the rest of the bishops, and specially the "military vicars" (who gave "spiritual comfort" to torturers and pilots who threw human bodies to the River Plate) where in the same role that Pio XII and the Vatican staff. It is not an attack to Roman Catholics. Usually, the religious hierarchies are always in the side of the political power. You can see muslim priests giving spiritual comfort to terrorists, as rabbies in the Israel Army do to soldiers who killed a Palestinian family. "Our" soldiers are always dispensed from the observance of the Commandments.