Titled Berlinweh – Yearning for a Home, the film will not be a conventional biopic.
In a statement, Holland said: "We do not tell Dietrich’s life in a continuous, linear narrative. We look for those few turning points in which what was most important and most universal—what resonates most strongly today in her fate—is reflected: the fate of a woman, an artist, a citizen, a human being."
Holland added: "Marlene Dietrich was a tangle of contradictions: a glamour star, yet an outstanding actress, singer and soldier; a selfish egocentric and a loyal, magnanimous friend and lover; a fighter for human rights, full of fears and uncertainties; a German who, in the eyes of many of her countrymen, became a traitor."
According to the producers, the film follows Dietrich across four decisive days in four different decades, portraying her in shifting cultural and political contexts: Paris in 1937, Bergen-Belsen in 1945, Tel Aviv in 1960, and Paris again in 1983.
Berlinweh – Yearning for a Home is being produced by the Berlin-based company X Filme Creative Pool, Czech company Marlene Film Production, and British-Irish producer Mike Downey.
It is based on a screenplay by German writer Ingo Rasper.
The same production team collaborated with Holland on her previous film, a biopic about Franz Kafka.
Dietrich's best-known films include Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, Morocco and The Devil Is a Woman; Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair and Witness for the Prosecution; Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright; and Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg.
Dietrich died in Paris in 1992 at the age of 90 and was buried in Berlin.
A memorial plaque at her birthplace in Berlin describes her as "one of the few German actresses who attained international significance."
It notes that, despite attractive offers from the Nazi regime, she emigrated to the United States and became an American citizen.
In 2002, the city of Berlin posthumously named her an honorary citizen.
Holland made her directing debut in the early 1970s. Her films include Europa Europa; In Darkness; The Secret Garden; Washington Square; To Kill a Priest; Total Eclipse; The Third Miracle; Copying Beethoven, Mr. Jones and Green Border.
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Source: Variety, Filmweb