Filmmaker Roland Suso Richter grew up in Berlin at a time when the Wall and all its connotations had full impact on its citizens. "Being a child in Berlin meant growing up entrenched in war and history. There was no escape from it, it was a part of life," Richter says.
After he became a filmmaker, Richter realized that though people talked about the war and their experiences "no one did movies about Germans being the victims. I think that part of it was guilt; part of it was a reluctance to dredge up bad memories." But things are changing. "There's now a new generation of filmmakers and viewers that are not overwhelmed by history and saddled with guilt. They can see the war from another perspective. And they have access to records and materials that hadn't been available before."
Richter says that under these circumstances, the time was ripe for a movie like "Dresden" and he was of the right age (46) to make it.