A Russian stranger walks into a dying East German town and unravels a family built on secrets.
Outside Time is the second feature film of Andreas Kleinert, a German director who grew up in the GDR and who started making films at the time of the fall of the Wall. The film is set in a small town somewhere in Brandenburg, a place which is rapidly falling "outside time"; since it cannot keep pace with the changes brought about by unification and the transformation of the former GDR. The Russian troops stationed there have withdrawn and their barracks have turned into rat-infested ruins; the intercity trains do not stop there any more and even the regional railway link to Berlin is going to be suspended. Most young people are leaving. When Sophie introduces her lover to her mother and her brother, Sergej becomes embroiled in the incestuous tensions underlying the relationship between Sophie, her brother, Georg, and her mother. The arrival of the Russian implodes the claustrophobic sham existence that held this dysfunctional family together.
Acting
Rosel Zech's matriarch simmers with bottled rage and desperation.
Direction
Kleinert frames decay as character—ruins that breathe and judge.
Cinematography
Bleak Brandenburg landscapes that make color feel like a memory.
Director
Andreas Kleinert
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Kleinert filmed in actual collapsing GDR towns, using real abandoned Russian barracks as sets—no production design needed.
The 'outside time' concept refers to zones excluded from capitalist progress; critics called it the most honest film about reunification's losers.
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