I Want It All (HSBC German Film Festival 2025) - Documentary Review

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Wed 30 Apr 2025 - Mon 19 May 2025

Ich Will Alles. Hildegard Knef

I Want It All - a documentary on the life of actress, singer and writer Hildegard Knef - a public figure in Germany at the age of 20, who never returned to anonymity during her highest highs or her lowest lows. She was born on 28 December 1925 in the South German city of Ulm and died at the age of 76 on 1 February 2002 in Berlin. She was married three times (1. Kurt Hirsch, 1947 2013 1952; 2. David Cameron, 1962 2013 1976; 3. Paul von Schell, 1977 2013 2002 till her death); and had only one child, a daughter - Christina Antonia who was born on 16 May 1958 in Munich, Germany, to her second husband, David Cameron. Hildegard had an unshakeable will to succeed, a 'driven' woman with the admirable quality to pick herself up when she was down, to keep pushing forward. A wonderful quote, she says, "I have ambition and I'll keep it. It accompanies me like a love that has good and bad days." This documentary sheds light on the life of this legendary actress and singer, whose role as Ninotchka in Cole Porter's Silk Stockings is considered her greatest triumph as she became the first German to succeed on Broadway (1955/56). As a writer, published in 1970 and translated into 17 languages, Knef 2019s highly successful autobiography The Gift Horse topped the der Spiegel bestseller list for six months. These are just two examples among many of her other successes. This doco is definitely one for the fans, with input from Hildegard's daughter and her last husband, amidst many interviews that took place in her lifetime, along with archival footage.


This grand dame of chanson never shied away from an interview as she faced questions about her successes and crushing defeats, never dodging anything asked of her - just asking for a little time to think about her response. A nationwide scandal for six seconds of exposure in a film which she thought was rather rich, considering Germany's uncommendable past and a fall from grace, never stopped Hildegard's unwavering spirit and artistic brilliance. This is a portrait of a highly talented, ambitious and astute woman who was opinionated and controversial, and showed the world how to survive fame and failure. Pursuing a career abroad soon after the war appeared to be too soon, and she was put on ice despite many seemingly successful auditions and screen tests, including a contract from Selznick, and didn't work for three years. Her thoughts on this were that her generation were children when Hitler came and were still children when the war broke out, and were nearly grown-ups when the war ended. That her generation had to take the responsibility of what another generation had done, and had to live with and accept the collective guilt.

Hildegard goes on to claim that her generation knew nothing of Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and so on, and about those camps, and that she only found out after the war in a cinema in Eastern Germany when she was at a film showing she was invited to. Not knowing what the film was about, it was the first time she heard the word Auschwitz, as she watched a two-hour film about it, and says it's an experience she's incapable of describing, and to describe her reaction is impossible. It's undeniable that husky-voiced and charismatic Hildegard has lived a truly extraordinary life and lived it to the full. Her belief that 'life owes us nothing, but life itself - everything else we have to get done ourselves' probably has a lot to do with her being a force of nature - I Want It All is an apt title for this doco. If you love biographies, Hildegard Knef, who cannot live without her larger-than-life lashes, will probably hold your attention.



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