Best known for his 1979 filmDavid, Peter Lilienthal was an unusual figure within postwar filmmaking circles. A child refugee from Nazi Germany who grew up in Uruguay, he was uniquely situated at the crossroads of German, Jewish, and Latin American cultures: while his work emerged from West German auteur filmmaking, his films bore the unmistakable imprints of Jewish thought and the militant character of New Latin American cinema.Peter Lilienthal is the first comprehensive study of Lilienthals life and career, highlighting the distinctively cross-cultural and transnational dimensions of his oeuvre, and exploring his role as an early exemplar of a more vibrant, inclusive European film culture.

Claudia Sandberg is a film historian and filmmaker. She is employed at the University of Melbourne as Senior Research and Teaching Fellow. Among other works, she created the documentaryHidden Films: A Journey between Exile and Memory (2016) with Alejandro Areal Vélez. Sandberg co-edited the volumes ContemporaryLatin American Cinema: Resisting Neoliberalism? (2018) andThe German Cinema Book (Second edition, 2020).

List of Illustrations

Introduction: An Uneasy Fit

Chapter 1. A Jewish Filmmaker in Post-War Germany
Chapter 2. Of Rebels, Soldiers, and Dreamers
Chapter 3. Across the Cold War Divide

Conclusion: Recovering Lost Pasts

In Dialogue
Lilienthals Filmography
Bibliography
Index