Love, German style.

The director of a lesbian film set during World War II talks about taking risks

A milestone kicked off this year's Berlin film festival in February: Germany's own Aimee & Jaguar, the first lesbian feature to open the fest. Helmed by first-time feature film director Max Farberbock, the film is based on the true stow of a doomed love between Lilly Wust (Juliane Kohler), a previously straight Nazi hausfrau, and closeted Jewish writer Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader) during the turbulence of 1943. The women called one another "Aimee" and "Jaguar" in the love letters they penned. Their affair ended when Schragenheim, like so many Jews and homosexuals before her, was dragged off, never to be seen again.

Known for theater and television work, the married-with-children Farberbock is not the most likely choice to make such a film. But he had a long-standing desire to put a lesbian stow on celluloid--in fact, he'd written a similar script ten years ago. "When [the 1994 book] Aimee and Jaguar appeared on the market," Farberbock recalls, "I went in the bookstore and saw it but didn't want to open it. I thought, Maybe this story is much better than my own." It was, and Farberbock signed on to direct.

Considering the oppressive period during which his film is set, Farberbock attempted to avoid overplaying its potential melodrama. "You can get tears so softly, so easily," he says, "and I didn't want those tears which are so easy to get in a Holocaust movie." His two actresses, both well-known for their stage work (and both heterosexual), also strove not for melodrama but for truth. "There is not one scene without fear," the director says. "The Holocaust is always there, but it's not on the surface."

While Farberbock feels that Lilly was just coming to grips with her newfound lesbian passion ("She was out of balance from one day to the other"), the Jewish Felice was "like a pirate," he says. "She was loved very much, very sexy, and she tried to get as much sex as she could. For me, there's a goal in that. To tell the people we are erotic and very sensual persons--not only political ones."

Although Farberbock made the story his own, he stresses his responsibility to the real Lilly Wust, now age 85 and living in Berlin. Surrounded by respectful attention as well as paparazzi at the Berlin film festival, she seemed flattered by the film's earnest portrayal of her life.

This kind of earnestness and honesty, Farberbock believes, will help to revitalize the international prestige of his country's film industry. As an artist trying to conquer new worlds, in a country still trying to shed its past, he plans to keep filming challenging material. "We should not always expect that Germany is safe again!" Farberbock insists. "We should stay in troubled water and do our work nevertheless."

Ferber is a New York City--based writer who contributes to Time Out New York and other publications.

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