The Young Karl Marx

The Young Karl Marx is a 2017 historical drama film about Karl Marx, directed by Haitian filmmaker and political activist Raoul Peck, co-written by Peck and Pascal Bonitzer, and starring August Diehl. It had its world premiere at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival on 12 February 2017. Plot While in his 20s, Karl Marx struggles to establish himself as a writer of political and sociological importance. The film begins with a scene where poor people are gathering dead wood in a forest where they have done this for centuries, but the government has made it illegal to collect the wood as it is now legally private property of the landlords. The poor are persecuted and extrajudicially killed by the government officials. Marx wrote about these events and believes that the bourgeois class has taken ownership of the state itself. Marx meets Friedrich Engels, a young man whose wealthy father owns factories. Engels' belief that the workers there and elsewhere, including children, are mistreated and underpaid matures. The men begin to work together to create a new political movement to reform and unite the impoverished workers. Eventually, the two stage a coup during a meeting of the League of the Just and create the Communist League in its place. The film ends with Marx and Engels publishing select theories, in a simple language for anyone to understand in a relatively short writing known as The Communist Manifesto the same year of the 1848 revolutions. Cast August Diehl as Karl Marx Stefan Konarske as Friedrich Engels Vicky Krieps as Jenny von Westphalen Olivier Gourmet as Pierre Proudhon Hannah Steele as Mary Burns Alexander Scheer as Wilhelm Weitling Hans-Uwe Bauer as Arnold Ruge Michael Brandner as Joseph Moll Ivan Franěk as Mikhail Bakunin Peter Benedict as Friedrich Engels Sr. Niels-Bruno Schmidt as Karl Grün Marie Meinzenbach as Lenchen Eric Godon as The foreman Stephen Hogan as Thomas Naylor Rolf Kanies as Moses Hess Ulrich Brandhoff as Hermann Kriege Aran Bertetto as Paddy