GZH invites you to a special screening of:

Lotte in Weimar Director: Egon Günther Year: 1974/1975 Language: German (with English subtitles) Runtime: 125 minutes Color: Orwocolor

Synopsis: Based on Thomas Mann’s 1939 novel Lotte in Weimar, this East German drama revisits one of German literature’s most iconic figures, Goethe’s Lotte. Mann- a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate- crafts a poignant meditation on art, memory, and human longing.

Decades after inspiring The Sorrows of Young Werther, the now middle-aged Charlotte Kestner (Lilli Palmer) travels with her daughter to Weimar in 1816, hoping to meet Goethe once more. When a young waiter recognizes her as the “real” Lotte, the news spreads quickly through the town, drawing curiosity and excitement from Weimar’s cultured elite. Visitors flock to her inn, eager to glimpse the living muse of Goethe’s youthful masterpiece.

As Charlotte is swept into the orbit of gossip, admiration, and expectation, her long-awaited reunion with Goethe (Martin Hellberg) unfolds not as a romantic rekindling but as a profound confrontation between past and present, memory and myth. Egon Günther’s reflective, elegantly staged adaptation explores the shifting boundaries between life and art, celebrity and solitude, revealing how time transforms both love and legend.

We have selected this film in celebration of Thomas Mann's 150th birth anniversary, a tribute to one of Germany’s most enduring literary voices.

All are welcome!