When Dr. Schmith's proposal for international research on infant mortality is rejected, he decides to leave East Germany and strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children's hospital in West Germany. But then the decision is reversed: the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the GDR section. Moreover, he falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina. Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly...
Acting
Mueller-Stahl's face is a masterclass in suffocated panic.
Direction
Gräf turns hospital corridors into ideological prison yards.
Director
Roland Gräf
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made by DEFA, East Germany's state studio, yet brutally critiques GDR systems — a rare sanctioned self-criticism before the Wall fell.
Armin Mueller-Stahl would later defect for real in 1980, making this performance eerily prophetic autobiography.
DE
