Lorenz and Marlena, Letters from the Front

2×45′ & 82′ / EN, FR/ HD / 2025

Lorenz and Marlena is the story of an impossible love. The myth of Romeo and Juliet transposed into the fate of two soldiers, whose parents are the Soviet Union and Germany. Through recovered testimonies, Lorenz and Marlena are the spokespersons for thousands of anonymous people who participated in the war. We are used to hearing male accounts of war, yet history shows that women also played a role in this armed conflict. The Wehrmacht soldier, often stereotyped and lumped together with the Waffen SS, appears in our memories as a fanatical Nazi, blindly obeying Hitler's orders.

Lorenz shows that there were many of them, ordinary soldiers whose sole objective was to serve their country. Marlena, for her part, gives us an insight into the situation of Soviet women in the middle of the century. Being a woman under the communist regime was a unique status. During World War II, women were politically, socially, and psychologically more capable of mobilizing than women in other countries. This documentary takes an innovative form, combining historical document, epistolary novel, and fiction. It is a decidedly original genre for recounting World War II.