A Hidden Life (2019 film)
A Hidden Life is a 2019 epic historical drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick. It stars August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, and Matthias Schoenaerts, with Michael Nyqvist and Bruno Ganz in their final performances. The film depicts the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer and devout Catholic who refused to fight for the Nazis in World War II.
| A Hidden Life | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Terrence Malick |
| Written by | Terrence Malick |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Jörg Widmer |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | James Newton Howard |
Production companies |
|
| Distributed by | Fox Searchlight Pictures (United States) Pandora Film (Germany) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 174 minutes |
| Countries |
|
| Languages |
|
| Budget | $7–9 million |
| Box office | $4.6 million |
The title is taken from George Eliot's Middlemarch:
... for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Eliot in turn derived it from a phrase in the New Testament, the Epistle to the Colossians 3:3: "For you died, and [now] your life is hidden with Christ in God."
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019 and was theatrically released in the United States on December 13, 2019. It received critical acclaim upon release and was the final feature film to be released under the Fox Searchlight Pictures name before Walt Disney Studios changed the company's name to Searchlight Pictures on January 17, 2020.