Charlotte Kestner (played by Lilli Palmer) was the love of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s youth, who became famous as Lotte in his renowned epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774. After four decades, in late summer 1816, Charlotte travels to Weimar to see Goethe again. The posturing of high society she finds there and her disappointing encounter with her former love lead her to an unexpected conclusion: she no longer loves him. This film is based on the 1939 novel LOTTE IN WEIMAR: The Beloved Returns, by Nobel Prize–winning German novelist Thomas Mann. It was the first film ever to represent the GDR in competition at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. The renowned Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra even played selections from Gustav Mahler’s Sixth Symphony contributed to the prestige production.