Marc Rothemund and Julia Jentsch, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

Writer-director Marc Rothemund
towers over Julia Jentsch, his leading lady in Sophie Scholl: The Final Days,
but they are obviously a perfect team. This six-foot-four filmmaker and his diminutive actress (The Edukators) have made an Oscar-nominated hit out of the story of one of WWII's best known martyrs. Sophie Scholl was a Protestant college student who joined the pacifist Hitler resistance group the White Rose.
While the story of the White Rose was previously told in Michael Verhoeven's well-regarded 1983 film The White Rose, Rothemund gained access to the actual Nazi archives of Scholl's trial and interrogation. This material had been stored in Moscow and was kept secret until the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany when the files were returned to Munich. Winner of three German Film awards, both Rothemund and Jentsch were also honored at last year's Berlin Film Festival. The duo was interviewed in L.A.'s historic Roosevelt Hotel lobby.

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