Lili Marleen (film) Lili Marleen (film) Lili Marleen is a 1981 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Hanna Schygulla. The screenplay was produced using the autobiographical novel "Der Himmel hat viele Farben" ("The Heavens Have Many Colors") by Lale Andersen. However, according to Lale Andersen's last husband, Arthur Beul, the film's plot bore little relation to her real life. The film is set during the Third Reich and is about the forbidden love between the German singer Willie (Hanna Schygulla) and the Swiss Jewish composer Robert Mendelssohn (a character based on Rolf Liebermann), who actively seeks to help
Hanna Schygulla Hanna Schygulla Hanna Schygulla (born 25 December 1943) is a German actress and chanson singer. Long associated with the theater and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, for whom she first worked in 1965, she is generally considered the most prominent German actress of the New German Cinema. She won the 1979 Berlin Silver Bear for Best Actress for Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun", and the 1983 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the Marco Ferreri film "The Story of Piera". Schygulla was born in Königshütte (now Chorzów, Poland) to German parents Antonie (née Mzyk) and Joseph Schygulla.