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Poster for Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?

Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?

1932 · 74 min

A stark, documentary-like plunge into poverty and despair, punctuated by rousing songs and blunt political argument; sobering and quietly furious.

Overview
Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”

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Stream in the UK
  • BFI Player
More options Data from JustWatch
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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • bleakstrength 3 of 3
  • melancholicstrength 2 of 3
  • earneststrength 3 of 3
  • satiricalstrength 1 of 3
Pacing
measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
demanding, 4 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • class
  • survival
  • isolation
  • politics
  • family
Places
  • big city
  • countryside
Era
period
Audience
adult
Form
  • ensemble
Content intensity
  • Gore none
  • Language mild
  • Violence mild
  • Sex mild
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action1
Horror1
Humour2
Realism9
Romance3
Tension5
Darkness8
Complexity7
Emotional weight8

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Where to watch in the UK

Stream
  • BFI Player
Rent or buy
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Streaming data from JustWatch.All options on TMDB

Details

Genres
drama
Directed by
Slatan Dudow
Written by
Ernst Ottwalt, Bertolt Brecht
Starring
Hertha Thiele, Ernst Busch, Max Sablotzki, Lilli Schoenborn, Martha Wolter, Adolf Fischer, Gerhard Bienert, Erwin Geschonneck
Music
Hanns Eisler
Cinematography
Günther Krampf
Runtime
74 min
Country
Germany
Languages
German

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