"The White Ribbon” won the top award, the Palme d’Or, at the 2009 Cannes Fest. Sony Classics will release the film, which is Germany's Oscar entry, in December.
Q: Inspiration to focus the story on a village in Northern Germany prior to WWI?
Haneke: I wanted to present a group of children on whom absolute values are being imposed. What I was trying to say was that if someone adopts an absolute principle, when it becomes absolute then it becomes inhuman. The original idea was a children’s choir, who want to make absolute principles concrete, and those who do not live up to them.
