"The way Veronica Ferres plays the back and fill between extinction, horror, elimination and motherliness [...] is percussive and terrific."

Veronica Ferres, mother of a 10 year old girl, is talking about her book "Children are our life", in which she portrayed 15 persons who showed a special engagement for the belongings of children in need. One of them is Gaby Schäfer, the founder of the association "Sunshine4kids e.V. The Association affords leisuretime-activities for children and adolescents, that are in a difficult state of life - for free. At the end of March, Schäfer was decorated as "Woman of the year" for her engagement from the Magazine "Bild der Frau". At "Markus Lanz", Ferres and Schäfer are talking about their experiences with children and adolescents and whistle-blow how everybody is able to help.

The new ZDF-film of Veronica Ferres, "Lena Fauch", is about dark shadows of the past, about a gunman and a traumatized SEK-executive. The Shooting starts today, on the 16th of June in Munich. Veronica is playing the leading role: the police-pastor Lena Fauch. Kai Wessel is directing the movie.

MARCO W.
247 DAYS IN TURKISH PRISON
The to begin with jaunty and wonderful resort island at the turkish riviera ends for Marco (Vladimir Burlakov) and his parents Martina (Veronica Ferres) and Ralf (Herbert Knaup) dramatic: Marco gets arrested at the last day of their holiday because he apparently raped a joung english girl. He has to spend eight months in a turkish prison - 247 back-breaking days under degrading circumstances: in a small cell together with 30 strange, some of them drug addicts, adult prisoners -treated like a dangerous criminal. When Marco finally leaves the prison and goes back to Germany, months full of fear, hope, despair, frustration and defeat end for him and his family...

The doom of Marco Weiß shaked Germany in 2007. The TV-event is based on the book "Marco W. - my 247 days in turkish prison".

Even if we all tend to oust it: many children in our country live in misery. There are socially deprived, abused or uncared-for children. Children, that don't get love from their parents, but only daily violence. Children that lost one or both their parents. And last but not least children that are sick to death, whose relatives need urgent help in taking care of them. They all need our help. Veronica Ferres presents projects that start to help there, where the misery and poverty is the worse. A book that arrouses and leads to think. A book that calls for help.

Veronica Ferres says: "Children show us the basics, and it is the greatest gift to see how they develop. We have to protect them and make them strong for the future."

Thursday 27th January 2011, 20:15-22:15 ARD

From now on Kai Plaume asks the questions in the "Star Quiz" on ARD. At his first show, he therefore invited top-class guests and presented a spectacular premiere: for the very first time, Veronica Ferres appeared at a quiz show.
For herself and the other candidates then counted: Who can impress the most with knowledge, and therefore win the most money? 150 000Euro were in the Jackpot for a charity of their choice. Veronica Ferres and Oliver Bierhof climb the Euro-Ladder and end with...?

In the ARD-fairy-tale "The blue light" Veronica Ferres is playing the leading role: the wicked witch. The filmization of the Grimm-fairy-tale is star-studded. In Fulda and in the Taunus the shooting is taking place in June/July 2010. The Hessische Rundfunk is responsible for the movie.
Cutted out by the king of his earned pay Jakob (Christoph Letkowski) is walking through the wood to get home. Attracted by the delicious smell of the soup, he is knocking on the door of a little house. That the charming occupant (Veronica Ferres) actually is a wicked witch he realizes too late. Under one condition, she will let him go: He has to take blue light for her out of the well. Herwith a row of implications is starting.

Broadcast "Rosannas daughter": Wednesday, 10th of November 2010, 20:15, ARD

On november 10th 2010, at 20:15 on ARD, Veronica Ferres can once again shine with a brilliant performance in the TV-Movie "Rosanna's daughter". In this psycho-drama she plays being a mother agains her will. On her side play Fritz Karl and the young actress Mathilde Bundschuh, who represents the quiet schemer. Adolf-Grimme-Award winner Christian Jeltsch, who wrote the script after the Book of the same title by Amelie Fried, tried to show the complicated Relations among themselves and the motives of the characters. The movie was directed by the award-winning Franziska Buch, who in the past, made movies from the perspective of teenagers.
Professional and personal life are for the successful scientist Nela (Veronica Ferres) no contradiction. For her next project, the renowned primate-scientist wants to travel to Africa. Her marriage with the lawyer Josch (Fritz Karl), who fights with a lot of commitment against unjustified deportation of asylum seekers, is harmonious.
The sudden death of Josh's ex-girlfriend Rosanna tests the young and loving couple. The deceased woman leaves behind her 14-year-old daughter Aimée (Mathilde Bundschuh), who is very traumatized after the road accident and doesn't speak anymore. Her grandparents are hopelessly overextended with the unreconable teenager. Deciding over Nela's head, Josh decides that Aimée can move in and live with them. Although Nela never wanted children, she tries her best to reach and get closer to the girl. Aimée on the other hand doesn't appreciate the effort. Quite the contrary: she looks after love from her step-dad and uses every opportunity to undermine Nela's relationship with him. Disappointed by Josh, who doesn't seem to notice Aimée's intrigues, Nela withdraws a bit. When Josh then finds out about Aimée's fraud, it comes to a conflict. Then Aimée disappeares without a trace. Nela and Josh only have one chance to find the weak and unstable teenager: they have to act in concert.

Producers on behalf of ARD Degeto and the BR are Nico Hofmann and Sascha Schwingel (teamWorx), Co-Production Bella Vita Film. The film was shot in spring 2009 in Munich and surroundings.

In october 2010 began the shooting for the TV-adaption of "The long wave behind the keel", after the novel of the same title by Pavel Kohout. Winner of the german TV award Nikolaus Leytner directed the script by Klaus Richter. The leading parts are with the actors Christiane Hörbiger, Veronica Ferres and Mario Adorf as well as newcomer Christoph Letkowski a top-class cast. The shooting for the melodrama about guilt and expiation, love and forgiveness last presumably until 18th november 2010, and it will take place on a cruise liner in the Mediterranean Sea, Vienna and surrounding, as well as Sri Lanka.

On a cruise liner there are two people that meet eachother, that became deadly enemies during Wold War two, as they were in politically opposed camps: Professor Martin Burian (Mario Adorf), former czeck agent of the government and Margarete Kämmerer (Christiane Hörbiger), a displaced person of the sudetenland. Margarete remembers Burian as that Czech, who after the end of war let liquidate the german male population-below them her first husband Sepp. Martin Burian on the other hand knows that Sepp Pichler has been a ambitious Nazi, who can be blamed for his brothers death. The ship is a place where no one can escape the other one, just as their past. Margarete travels with her nephew Sigi (Christoph Letowski), who has to make sure that after her death, her ash will be spread into the sea- in the long wave behind the keel. Martin is traveling with his daughter-in-law Sylva (Veronica Ferres), who has been left by her husband. Also Sylva has a long wave to her goal: she wants to put her life to an end. Confronted with the story of the older ones and hoping for a concilliation, Sylva and Sigi become closer. But then Margarete and Martin disappear without a trace from board...

"The long wave behind the keel" is a production of Mona Film (Producers: Thomas Hroch and Gerald Podgornig) in collaboration with ARD Degeto for ARD and the ORF, supported by the TV-fonds Austria. Behind the camera is Hermann Dunzendorfer. The editorial office is under Hans-Wolfgang Jurgan (ARD Degeto) and Dr. Andrea Artner (ORF).

An affair of the heart-Marga Spiegel and her saviours
Documentary
"We are the only jewish family in Germany that has been saved as a whole", says Marga Spiegel. Herself, her husband Sigmund and her daughter Karin have been hidden in five families from the Münsterland region during the years 1943 until 1945 from the Nazis. By this, the farmes saved the family from the deportation. The general conditions weren't good at all- the small town Ahlen in Westphalia was very proud back then, being one of the first jewish-free towns in Germany. Most of the Jews didn't survive the Nazi-time, 36 members of the Spiegel family died in concentration camps. The amazing story of the surviving of Marga Spiegel has recently been filmed under the title "Saviours in the night" and can be seen in germany, as well as internations cinemas.
In the centre of the movie "An affair of the heart" are the in the meantime 98-year old Marga Spiegel, her main saviour Anni Aschoff and many relatives of the other participating farmer families. They tell about two years in major danger, about the many difficulties and always new livesaving fraud- and about a happy end for everyone. A story about procecution, courage, hope and quiet heros. Her own saving, but especially the transmission of this story is for Marga an "affair of the heart".

Since May 2010 Veronica was shooting the movie "247 days". The film shows the tragic destiny of the in those days 17 year old german boy Marco Weiss, who has been arrested because of sexual abuse during his holiday in Turkey in 2007.
The case "Marco" was a theme all around the world. Beside Veronica Ferres, Vladimir Burlakov as Marco, Herbert Knaup as his father Ralf and Luk Pfaff as his brother Sascha are playing in that movie.
It is a cooperation between SAT1and the production company Zeitsprung Entertainment GmbH. The shooting took place in Malta and in Lower Saxony.
Producer is Michael Souvignier, director Oliver Dommenget.

BURDA LIVE welcomed Veronica Ferres and Sunnyi Melles at the "Burda Media Park Publishers". The two talked about the new SOS-campaign, presented the campaign and showed the making-of first time in Germany.

"There will be no help, if we close our eyes. Only if we put attention to something, we can make a change." With that appeal Veronica Ferres and Sunnyi Melles called on the media to support the German SOS Children’s Village Association with their new, extraordinary TV-spots together with other celebrities (Michael Schumacher, Joachim Król, Anna Thalbach and Günter Wallraff). "That children have the possibility to enjoy their childhood!"

In autumn 2009 Veronica Ferres was on camera for the tragic-comedy cinema film "Life is too long" with director Dani Levy. The shooting of the movie was in Berlin and Italy. Markus Hering is playing the leading role.
He portrays the crisis-ridden Jewish director Alfi Seliger who drifts through the chaos of his life as artist, family father and son of a eccentric mother. His escalating disaster among the German movie scene reaches its zenith by a theatrical-helpless suicide effort. Alfi survives- but he awakes only apparently in his old life...

Premiere: 23. AUGUST 2010, "Cinema at the Kulturbrauerei", Berlin
Cinema broadcast: 26. AUGUST 2010

Also in autumn 2009 Veronica Ferres was in Berlin to appear in the TV movie "She deserved it". Author an director Thomas Stiller´s film deals with youngsters that - themselves thrown off course - let off steam on others, a present day phenemenon.
The ARD Degeto, Hans-Wolfgang Jurgan, and the BR, Bettina Ricklefs are responsible for the editing. Producers are Nico Hofmann, Benjamin Benedict and Gesa Tönnesen, co-producer is Veronica Ferres.

The german/french/israeli production "Saviours in the night" celebrated its international premiere at the 62nd International Film Festival of Locarno on the 6th of August 2009.
The movie was also the opener of the New York Jewish Film Festival on 12th of January 2010.
"Saviours in the night" was the main component of the Israeli Holocaust-Day Commemoration event of the Israeli Consulate in New York. The screening was on 12th of April 2010, at the Tolerance Center - Simon Wiesenthal Center in NYC.
The movie will also be screened at Zagreb Jewish Film Festival, taking place at the Europa Cinema in Zagreb, Croatia, from 23rd till 29th of May 2010, as well as at the 30th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (24th til 29th of July 2010).
On 14th of June 2010 the movie celebrated its premiere in France at the Gaumont Opéra Cinema in Paris.
In November 2010 the movie will be shown in the cinemas in the USA.

Press comentaries "Saviours in the night":

Forward
When Putsch Came to Shove
On The Go
By Masha Leon
Published January 21, 2010, issue of January 29, 2010.
“SAVIORS IN THE NIGHT”: WHEN HITLER’S PUTSCH CAME TO SHOVE, SOME GERMANS PROVED TO BE RIGHTEOUS MENTSHN
“How do you hide a Jewish family in full view?” posited 97-year-old Marga Spiegel, whose memoir, “Saviors in the Night/Unter Bauern: Retter in der Nacht,” is the basis for the film of the same name, which launched January 12 at the New York Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater. “By saving us, they saved the world,” said Spiegel, as we sat next to each other at lunch at Sardi’s earlier that day.
“To make the film in Germany was difficult,” said the film’s director, Amsterdam-born Ludi Boeken. “To show good Germans is taboo,” he added, but he did it anyway. “Even my intellectual wife told me, ‘You made me, a French Jewess, cry for a dead German.’”
Across from me, the stunning German actress Veronica Ferres, who portrays Spiegel in the film, said: “On December 23, I opened the Hanukkah lighting at the Brandenburg (Gate).” She said thousands of Jews attended, and Berlin’s chief rabbi told them, “We are all a community.”
...

The Hollywood Reporter
Unter Bauern: Saviors of the Night - Film Review
By Ray Bennett, August 20, 2009
Bottom Line: Remarkable real-life story of German farmers who helped hide Jewish friends fromthe Nazis.
LOCARNO, Switzerland - German cinema's growing number of films willing to address topics relating to World War II has a fine addition in Ludi Boeken's "Under Bauern: Saviors of the Night", which tells of farmers - unter bauern - in Westphalia who sheltered Jewish friends from the Nazis.
The appearance at the end of the picture of characters whose real life stories are related to the subject adds depth to a production filled with emotional power and a constant sense of dread. The film will find an international welcome from audiences who wish to add to their knowledge of the time and appreciate a riveting human drama well told.
Working from a smart screenplay by Otto Jagersberg, Imo Moskowicz and Heidrum Schleef (based on a memoir by Marga Spiegel) director Boeken spurns melodrama in favor of understatement and a clear depiction of events while sustaining an extraordinary degree of tension throughout.
The film begins in 1943 with the Nazis deporting the last German Jews to death camps. Genial horse trader Menne Spiegel (Armin Rohde) won an Iron Cross fighting for Germany in World War I but now his country's rulers want to kill him and his family.
Desperate, he turns to neighboring farmer Heinrich Aschoff (Martin Horn) and his wife Maria (Margarita Broich) who immediately offers to hide Menne's wife Marga (Veronica Ferres) and their young daughter.
Menne elects to move from farmer to farmer, living in dire conditions and mostly in the dark for two years. Under constant threat of exposure from nosy SS officers, over-enthusiastic Hitler Youth and frightened citizens, the Spiegels struggle to get by in their separate hideaways.
The film boasts fine performances and is all the more persuasive because it underplays the dogged strength and loyalty of the rural Germans who reject the merciless extremism of dictatorship and put themselves at grave risk.
Even at the end of the war, with the light of freedom about to bring relief, extraordinary tension remains due to the threat of vengeful cowards, freed war prisoners who go on the rampage, and even the liberating Allies who cannot tell a good German from a bad one.

Variety
Saviors in the Night
Unter Bauern: Retter in der Nacht
...
By Derek Elley, August 20, 2009
The Germans — well, most of ’em — are actually the good guys in WWII drama "Saviors in the Night," which tweaks the Jews-in-hiding subgenre by making the shelterers ordinary, salt-of-the-earth Westphalian peasants. Based on the memoir (first published in 1969) of the now 97-year-old Marga Spiegel, this third feature by Dutch helmer-producer Ludi Boeken benefits from his docu background in its realistic, no-frills style and refreshingly unsentimental treatment of the subject. However, modest production values, though a dramatic plus, will likely make this a smallscreen item outside home turf, where it goes out Oct. 6.
The film has the same verismo feel as Boeken’s journos-in-Lebanon drama, "Deadlines," but without its conventional third act and cookie-cutter characters. The swiftly paced, almost throwaway narrative, tightly cut by Suzanne Fenn ("Deadlines") and shot handheld by Dani Schneor in 16mm, avoids the stagy look of most WWII dramas; the slightly fuzzy, weakly colored look of the 35mm blowup adds a further semi-docu touch.
A brief prologue, set during WWI in 1918, sets up the background of German-Jewish peasant Siegmund "Menne" Spiegel (Armin Rohde), who won an Iron Cross for defending Deutschland on the Western Front. "Twenty-five years later, my homeland was trying to kill me," he says in v.o., as the story jumps straight to 1943.
Escaping the final transports of Jews to the East, Menne one night bumps into his old friend, Heinrich Aschoff (Martin Horn), who unhesitatingly offers refuge for Menne’s wife, Marga (Veronica Ferres), and their young daughter, Karin (Luisa Mix), on his farm. Tall and blonde, Marga can easily pass as an Aryan German, and she and Karin adopt the surname Krone. Only Heinrich’s wife, Maria (Margarita Broich), is also in on the deception; their teen daughter, Anni (Lia Hoensbroech), who has a thing going with local Nazi Youth group leader Erich (Daniel Flieger), isn’t told.
With discreet use of atmospheric music and fine performances by the ensemble cast, the film builds a convincing atmosphere of Marga and Karin always on the verge of being found out as they try to blend in with the farm workers and evacuees housed at the farm. That Christmas, when Marga’s cover is almost blown, Heinrich and Maria decide to convince Anni that what they are doing is the right thing. Meanwhile, Menne, who’s been given shelter by another farmer (Veit Stuebner), daily runs the risk of being discovered by a suspicious Erich.
Considering it runs counter to accepted wisdom that all Germans were collaborators with the Nazi regime, the pic studiously avoids grandstanding, letting the characters and the story do the talking. The screenplay creates a real ensemble of which Marga and Menne are simply a part, rather than the leads.
In many respects, the movie is more about the Aschoff family — regular northwest German practical peasantry, grounded in the soil and basic values; Heinrich, like Menne, was decorated in WWI and his eldest son (Marlon Kittel) is now on the Eastern Front, from which they hardly expect him to return.
...
A final scene, showing the real-life Marga and Anni visiting the set during filming, seems absolutely right in context. Original German title means "Among Peasants: Savior in the Night." ...

Blickpunkt Film, 31.08.09
„…Es ist nicht der einzige nahegehende Moment in einem fast dokumentarisch nüchternen, auf wenige Orte beschränkten Zeitporträt von Ludi Boeken, der zwei Jahre Kriegsgeschichte durchmisst…
… die Geschichte vom Widerstand stiller Helden kommt ohne Pathos aus und ist spannender als die meisten Thriller. Vor allem schafft das Drama ein versöhnliches Denkmal für Menschlichkeit.“


"Saviours in the night" got the attribute "extra valuable" of the "Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden":
"Die Jüdin Marga Spiegel (Veronica Ferres) lebt während des Zweiten
Weltkriegs in Deutschland. Statt zu fliehen, taucht sie gemeinsam mit
ihrer Familie vor den Nazi unter, wobei ihre kleine Tochter und sie von
Bauern auf dem Land versteckt werden. Das Geschichtsdrama ist
besonders durch die Nähe zu den Protagonisten sehr bewegend und die
Schicksale fesselnd bis ins Detail. Der authentische Film zeigt, zum einen Mut, Menschlichkeit, Freundschaft und auch den schmalen Grad zwischen Freud und Leid. Die brillante Besetzung und die exzellente Ausstattung machen UNTER BAUERN darüber hinaus sehenswert. Ein äußerst packender und berührender Film, der eine außerordentlich persönliche und hoch interessante Geschichte präsentiert."

Cinema broadcast: 08 th of October 2009 in Germany
16th of June 2010 in France
30th of September 2010 in Holland