The Flight
Dir. Roland Grӓf, GDR, 1977, digital, 94 min., German with English subtitles
Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Jenny Gröllmann
The topic of escaping to the West was taboo in the GDR, so The Flight is an exception in East German film history. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1978, this was the last film Armin Mueller-Stahl made at the East German DEFA studios. In 1980, only two years after the release of the film, he left East Germany for the West because of professional restrictions imposed on him in response to his protests against the expatriation of the dissident singer/songwriter Wolf Biermann.
When Dr. Schmith’s (Armin Mueller-Stahl) 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 the decision is reversed—the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the section. There, he falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina (Jenny Gröllmann). Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly…
Presented by the Wende Museum and the Goethe-Institut, this screening is generously supported by the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as part of the Defa 20@20 anniversary tour.
