Two friends from two separate countries on the brink of war; will a friendship be enough to mitigate an imminent global conflict? That’s the plot for “Munich: The Edge Of War,” a new film by German director Christian Scwochow.
The movie just had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on Wednesday, and Netflix has already snatched up streaming rights for the film for early next year. Adapted from a novel by Richard Harris by Ben Power, the film looks at a crucial meeting between the British and German governments in 1938 meant to deescalate another world war.
Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
Based on the international bestseller by Robert Harris. It is Autumn 1938 and Europe stands on the brink of war. Adolf Hitler is preparing to invade Czechoslovakia and Neville Chamberlain’s government desperately seeks a peaceful solution. With the pressure building, Hugh Legat, British civil servant, and Paul von Hartmann, German diplomat, travel to Munich for the emergency Conference. As negotiations begin, the two old friends find themselves at the centre of a web of political subterfuge and very real danger. With the whole world watching, can war be averted and, if so, at what cost?
The film stars George MacKay and Jannis Niewöhner as Legat and Hartmann. Jeremy Irons also stars as Neville Chamberlain. Anji Mohindra, Jessica Brown Findlay, Alex Jennings, Robert Bathurst, Mark Lewis Jones, August Diehl, and Liv Lisa Fries round out the main cast.
READ MORE: Fall 2021 Movie Preview: 60+ Must-See Films
Schwochow is well-known in Germany for his work on various TV shows, but he’s best known stateside for directing a couple of episodes of the popular Netflix show, “The Crown.” Power’s other scripts include a few episodes for BBC Two‘s Shakespeare saga, ‘The Hollow Crown.’
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2021
For those without a Netflix account, “Munich: The Edge Of War” comes to select theaters next year in January 2022. The film streams exclusively on Netflix on January 21, 2022. Watch the trailer below.