kviff.com
News
Festival Guide
  • Tickets and Festival Pass
  • Accommodations
  • Transportation
  • Festival cinemas
  • No Barriers project
  • Kids at the festival
  • Festival Shop
Program
  • Catalogue of films
  • Accompanying programme
  • Archive of films
  • Audience award
  • KVIFF Talks
  • Film Entry
Film Industry
  • Industry accreditation
  • Film Industry at KVIFF
  • Industry Days Programme
  • KVIFF Eastern Promises
  • KVIFF Talents
Press
  • Press accreditation
  • Press Service
  • For download
  • Press releases
  • Photogallery
  • Videogallery
About the festival
  • Festival description
  • Programme sections
  • Awards
  • History
  • We support non-profits
  • Photogallery
  • Partners
  • Why We Support the Festival
  • Contacts
CZ
Sign in
Film Archive

The Bridge

World War II: 60 Years After 2005 / Die Brücke / Germany 1959

In disbelief at the possibility of capitulation in April 1945, seven pupils at a school in a small German town decide with suicidal determination to defend a strategically worthless bridge. The intransigence in the depiction of the era and its characters, and the cathartic strength of the finale of this famous 1959 film far outdo similarly oriented films made today.

The Bridge

Synopsis

Of the seven pupils at a secondary school in a small German town who receive the longed-for call-up order to join the “Volkssturm”, not one believes in Germany’s inevitable capitulation in April 1945. In order to defend one of the town’s (strategically worthless) bridges, they invest all the fervour of their sixteen years into the mission, their romantic yearning for adventure, sacrifice and friendship - all wonderful things yet, at the very core, and with calculated precision, perverted by poisonous ideology. That this film - unlike so many supposedly “classic films” - still touches today’s viewer with the same force as it did during its first screening 45 years ago (the catharsis of the final scene is still shocking) cannot be explained by what would elsewhere be a common, well-prepared dose of pacifist thinking, but solely though Wicki’s natural sense of morality and humaneness - his petition is not incidental, and no viewer can thus remain indifferent to it.

About the film

96 min / Black & white, 35 mm

Director Bernhard Wicki / Screenplay Michael Mansfeld, Karl-Wilhelm Vivier / Dir. of Photography Gerd von Bonin / Music Hans-Martin Majewski / Editor Carl Otto Bartning / Producer Hermann Schwerin / Production Fono Film / Cast Fritz Wepper, Volker Bohnet, Michael Hinz / Contact Národní filmový archiv, Goethe-Institut Prag

About the director

Bernhard Wicki

Bernhard Wicki (1919, Sankt Pölten-2000, Munich)
As one of the best actors of his generation from the German-speaking region, he worked with a number of leading German and foreign directors, including Michelangelo Antonioni (The Night/La notte, 1960). His first work as a director was the "independently" made film Why Are They Against Us? (Warum sind sie gegen uns?, 1958), followed by his anti-war masterpiece The Bridge (Die Brücke, 1959), awarded a number of prizes. His subsequent works were war dramas interwoven with socio-psychological films: The Miracle of Malachias (Das Wunder von Malachias, 1960-61), The Longest Day (1961-62), The Visit (1963), Morituri (1965) and The False Weight (Das falsche Gewicht, 1971). Wicki´s last, most ambitious film was made in Prague after many year´s preparation, an adaptation of Joseph Roth´s novel Spider´s Web (Das Spinnennetz, 1989).

Contacts

Národní filmový archiv
Závišova 5, 140 00, Praha 4
Czech Republic
E-mail: [email protected]

Goethe-Institut Prag
Masarykovo nábřeží 32, 110 00, Praha 1
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 221 962 233
Fax: +420 221 962 250
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Briana Čechová
Film Institution Rep.

Other partners
Newsletter

First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.

Follow us on the web:

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
is part of the KVIFF Group family, which covers other projects as well:

© 2025 KVIFF GROUP

Rules for Visitors / Website visitors privacy policy / GTC / Personal Data Protection / Rules for Claim / Rules and Regulations / Contacts