Swedish director Magnus Gertten already dedicated his films HARBOUR OF HOPE (2011) and EVERY FACE HAS A NAME (2015) to the almost 2000 other survivors of the German concentration camps who reached his hometown Malmö on April 28th 1945 using archival materials. NELLY AND NADINE, which won Gertten the TEDDY Jury Award at the 2022 Berlinale, is the last film in his film trilogy. Nadine Hwang‘s look fascinates him – what is she thinking about?

In the attic of a farmhouse in northern France, there are diaries, letters, super 8 films and photos of Sylvia Bianchi‘s grandmother Nelly Mousset-Vos. For 20 years, Sylvie couldn‘t look at the documents, but she is now ready to embark on a stirring journey into Nelly‘s past in front of the camera. Hesitant but still determined at first, Sylvia reconstructs the life of the mezzosoprano from the memory fragments and says out loud what the family never dared to: Nelly and Nadine, who found each other again after the war and went to Venezuela together, were a couple for decades. In her diary, Nelly describes when the two met each other: Christmas 1944 in the women‘s concentration camp Ravensbrück, when Nelly sang – and performed an aria from Madame Butterfly upon Nadine‘s request. In NELLY AND NADINE, Magnus Gertten directly accompanies the granddaughter as she gets close to a family secret – Nelly and Nadine‘s lesbian identity – and shows an unshakeable, queer love that blossomed against all odds. Gertten revealing Nelly and Nadine‘s personal memories of Ravensbrück concentration camp, which had its first official remembrance of lesbian women and girls in May 2022, serves as an impressive and necessary cinematic monument to the queer victims of National Socialism.

Stefanie Borowsky (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy