2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HIM

“An unusually matter-of-fact picture of the private and public effects of ordinary evil… Mr. Ludin’s anxious questioning, self-lacerating inquiry represents a powerful countertendency toward full acknowledgement of shared culpability and his quarrel with Barbel is part of what makes this ‘a typical German story.’”
– A. O. Scott, The New York Times

“Documentary films about filmmakers’ bad fathers are a dime a dozen – but this one trumps them all.
Hanns Ludin was a Nazi leader of the SA and a Third Reich officer in charge of Slovakia. His son Malte Ludin does
an admirable, disturbing, and often bemusing job of reminding us how much can change in one generation,
and how difficult it can be to know one’s father, particularly if he was executed for war crimes in 1947.”
– Logan Hill, New York Magazine

“Courageously probes… the revelations are shocking. The filmmaker doesn’t shrink from debating heatedly with his sisters onscreen or exposing them to their children as liars.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Lacerating and unsparing! As the agonized and agonizing confrontations proceed, and rationale after
rationale is demolished, no Ludin (or others like them) can hide inconvenient moral myopia regarding
their bloodstained history.”
– Jay Carr, amNY

“Malte’s discomforting interviews with his siblings, supplemented by surreally matter-of-fact, Zelig-like photos of Hanns in Hilter’s company, make for gripping and confrontational viewing.”
– Jim Ridley, Village Voice

“Penetrating and symbolically important! Even more fascinating is the CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS angle
of a family arguing over what their father stood for. The family involved is an entire nation. Malte Ludin
is a steady guide as he seeks neither to excuse nor to wallow in guilt but simply to face the truth.”
– Kyle Smith, New York Post

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It’s a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls “a typical German story.” TORTE BLUMA stars Stellan Skarsgard as a Nazi camp commandant and Simon McBurney as his prisoner/pastry chef.

With support from the Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Film

Q&A with 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HIM director Malte Ludin & producer Iva Scarcova (Recorded January 24, 2007)

Interview with Malte Ludin on WNYC's The Leonard Lopate Show (January 25, 2007)

Official website for 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HIM
(click on American flag for English)