In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.
Cinematography
Ice landscapes that swallow human drama whole
Production
Remarkable archival reconstruction from sparse materials
Director
Anna Schmidt
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Georg Forster station was abandoned entirely in 1993—making these thirteen literally the last East Germans to ever occupy it.
Director Anna Schmidt spent three years locating expedition members; two had died, others initially refused to revisit what they called 'our beautiful prison.'
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