The Last Chance / Die letzte Chance
country, year
Switzerland, 1945
genre
drama
running time
113′
directed by
Leopold Lindtberg
languages
German, Italian, English, French, Yiddish, Dutch, Polish
subtitles
Slovene subtitles
about the film
September 1943, Northern Italy. Two prisoners of war, an American and a British soldier, escape from a Nazi train bound for Germany. A village priest offers them shelter and helps them escape to Switzerland. The two young men soon find themselves in the role of smugglers when they agree to take a caravan of Jewish refugees of different ages and nationalities across the border. With the Nazis at their heels, they try to cross the mountains to Switzerland …
what was said about the film
“The story of the film is an innocent fairy tale compared to reality. /…/ It is not a film for those who have experienced misfortune, but for everyone else – the lucky, the privileged – to make them think.”
– Leopold Lindtberg
about the author
Leopold Lindtberg (1902-1984) was an Austrian Swiss film and theatre director. He fled Austria due to the Machtergreifung in Germany and ultimately settled in Switzerland. He directed many award-winning films and theatre plays, many of them dealing with the topic of the second world war.
festivals and awards
- recepient of the Golden Globe in 1946
- International Film Festival of Cannes 1946: Grand Prix and International Peace Prize for The Last Chance
filmography
– Wenn zwei sich streiten (1932)
– Jä-soo! (1935)
– Füsilier Wipf (1938)
– Constable Studer (1939)
– Die missbrauchten Liebesbriefe (1940)
– Landammann Stauffacher (1941)
– Marie-Louise (1944)
– The Last Chance (1945)
– Madness Rules (1947)
– Swiss Tour (Ein Seemann ist kein Schneemann) (1949)
– Four in a Jeep (1951)
– The Village (1953)