Ultimatum
Among the pioneers in the history of cinema, Erich von Stroheim is undoubtedly one of those who strived the most to invent his own myth. This hero of another time, who seemed to carry the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on his shoulders, was a remarkable inventor of forms, creating from his very first silent films gems of narration, carried by a breathtaking art of editing. Although he often acted in the films he directed, it was Greed, his great work in which he did not act, that made him the first cursed filmmaker. No version of this film corresponds exactly to the film he had made, which was quickly butchered. With the advent of talking pictures, he became a simple actor (of genius) crossing with his legendary silhouette countless films.
In 1914, during the days following the Sarajevo attack, while the threat of war hangs over Europe, an Austrian officer tries in vain to save his friend, a Serbian officer on a mission in Austria. In Vienna, alone and inconsolable, a young woman cries for her destroyed love.
Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene (27 April 1873 – 17 July 1938) was a film director of the silent era of German cinema. He is particularly known for directing the German silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a succession of other expressionist films. Wiene also directed a variety of other films of varying styles and genres. Following the Nazi rise to power in Germany, Wiene, who was of Jewish descent, fled into exile. Wiene died in Paris ten days before the end of production of a spy film, Ultimatum, after having suffered from cancer. The film was finished by Wiene's friend Robert Siodmak.
Robert Siodmak
Robert Siodmak (8 August 1900 – 10 March 1973) was a German film director who also worked in the United States. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of stylish, unpretentious Hollywood films noirs he made in the 1940s, such as The Killers (1946).
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