Fall of the Berlin Wall as a TV drama
Already the first scene of the Sat.1-movie "Wir sind das Volk" draws the audience directly into the action: Two men try to overcome the notorious death strip the wall between East and West. Armed with two wooden ladders, they sneak through the darkness. Alarm is triggered, shots fired, both are hit. One dies in a hail of bullets, the other rolls wounded over the wall at the last moment. What may luridly read here is cinematic as well as musically solved with a lot of tact.
Lutz (Lucas Gregorowicz, l.) And Jule (Anna Fischer, r.) On the run from the police.
From the cheesy title addition "love knows no bounds" you should not be fooled in the television two-parter: The TV producers of Sat.1 and ORF together with Olga Film filmed the latest German history exciting, the actors act great unpretentious, the opulent optics has plenty of GDR patina. Production designer Silke Buhr resurrected the GDR in "Das Leben der Anderen"; also in "Wir sind die Volk" she installed an astonishingly real-looking GDR ambience full of love for the graying detail.
It is about the historical events shortly before the collapse of the GDR, about the freedom of thinking and the freedom of being, and about ways to freedom. Regime critic Andreas Wagner fled to the West and leaves his girlfriend Katja Schell (Anja Kling) back. What he does not know: Katja is expecting a child from him.
Katja (Anja Kling) in prison
Six years later, hundreds of East Germans have already fled to the Prague embassy, Katja's escape fails during a camping holiday in Hungary. Incidentally, leading actress Anja Kling herself has a GDR past: at the age of 19, she fled across the Hungarian border to the west.
Katja ends up in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen prison. With solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and the subtle interrogation methods of the Stasi officer Schäfer (Heiner Lauterbach), the already battered GDR leadership wants to learn more about Katja's anti-state contacts.
On the next page: Real role models for the TV drama
Father and son: Andreas (Hans-Werner Meyer, l.) And Sven (Lino Sliskovic, r.)
Her six-year-old son Sven (Lino Sliskovic), whom the Hungarian border guards drove to the west, has to settle in West Berlin with his unknown father. This shows one of the strengths of the film: With Katja he not only establishes a single heroic figure, but also tells the stories of the people close to Katja.
Katja's ex-boyfriend Andreas meanwhile works at West-Fernsehen and tries to increase the pressure on the GDR regime with images of mass demonstrations smuggled out of the GDR. Meanwhile, Katja's younger brother Micha (Matthias Koeberlin) and his buddy Dirk (Ronald Zehrfeld) risk their heads as they film the Monday demonstrations and smuggle the tape over contacts in the West. Incidentally, the two figures are only half-fictional. Their real role models: Aram Radomski and Siegbert Schefke, who documented grievances for years in the GDR and smuggled their shots into western countries.
In autumn 1989, more and more people join the resistance. Even Katja's young colleague Jule (Anna Fischer), whose father Bernd (Jörg Schüttauf) works as a colonel in the Ministry of the Interior. That the GDR falls apart, Katja learns nothing in the Stasi prison.
A TV movie that gets under the skin - with a high-profile cast of actors who credibly embodies his roles.
"We are the people - love knows no borders" can be seen on Sat. 6, October 6 and 7, starting at 8:15 pm.
