Director Edward Berger doesn’t feel national pride in Germany

Despite representing Germany at this year’s Academy Awards for ‘best international feature’, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ writer-director Edward Berger doesn’t feel national pride for the country.

“I don’t feel that because of the history,” Berger told ‘Variety’.

“I could never say I’m proud to be German. Those words don’t fit into our mouths and rightly so. I would have a hard time thinking I would represent the country because I can’t speak for the entire country.”

On the episode of Variety’s ‘Awards Circuit Podcast’, Edward Berger discussed All Quiet on the Western Front’s nine Oscar nominations - the second most of the year - and employing the most artisans of any non-English movie in history. Finally, he shared why he feels a responsibility to accurately portray Germany’s role in some of humanity’s most devastating wars.

Distributed by ‘Netflix’ and based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ tells the story of a young German soldier and his terrifying experiences during World War I. It’s nominated for nine Oscars: best picture (Malte Grunert), adapted screenplay (Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell), production design (Christian M Goldbeck, Ernestine Hipper) cinematography (James Friend), makeup and hairstyling (Heike Merker, Linda Eisenhamerova), sound (Viktor Prasil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel, Stefan Korte), visual effects (Frank Petzold, Viktor Muller, Markus Frank, Kamil Jaffar), original score (Volker Bertelmann) and international feature (Germany). The movie is also coming off a record-breaking seven BAFTA wins, the most for a film not in English, surpassing the five held by ‘Cinema Paradiso’ (1988).