In the organizer's words:

RETROSPECTIVE: 100 YEARS OF KONRAD WOLF
I WAS NINETEEN

In April 1945, 19-year-old German Gregor Hecker returns to his homeland in the uniform of a Soviet lieutenant. He was eight when his parents emigrated to Moscow with him. From April 16 to May 2, he drives past Berlin in a Soviet military vehicle on the 48th Army's route north from the Oder. Gregor uses a loudspeaker to call on the soldiers who are still fighting to defect. Some come, others respond with gunfire. Every day Gregor meets people of different kinds, hopeful, confused, desperate.

He feels at home with his Russian friends, but many of the Germans puzzle him. Slowly he realizes that there is no such thing as "the Germans". He meets ordinary people, followers, reinsurers, defectors, perseverance fanatics, die-hard fascists. His first encounter with anti-fascists liberated from the concentration camp is a moving experience for him. And when his friend Sascha is killed in a final combat mission, the shaken Gregor is certain that he will work here to build a different, better Germany.

GDR 1967 by Konrad Wolf, 115 min., original German version
Cast:inside: Jaecki Schwarz, Wassili Liwanow, Alexei Eiboschenko, Galina Polskich, Jenny Gröllmann


Followed by a film discussion with Johanna Deventer (KonradWolfPodcast)

Price information:

Tickets: 9 / 7 (reduced) Euro