Movie Night at Houston-Leipzig: Barbara (2012) – a film by Christian Petzold
Please join us for our next meeting, on Thursday, July 11, 2019, 6:30 p.m., at L’Alliance Française, 427 Lovett Boulevard, Houston, TX 77006 (please note parking restrictions below), where we will continue our series of Cinema in East Germany 1946 – 1989. This time we will be screening the award-winning film Barbara by Christian Petzold, starring Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Rainer Bock, Christina Hecke and Jasna Fritzi Bauer.
East Germany, summer 1980: As punishment for applying for an exit visa to leave the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Barbara, formerly a doctor at the prestigious Charité Hospital in East Berlin, has been transferred to a provincial hospital in northern GDR where she works in the pediatric surgical ward. She is still monitored by the Stasi, and punished – for the hours in which they cannot find her – by searching her house, strip-searching and cavity-searching her.
Unhappy with her reassignment, and suspicious of her colleagues being spies for the secret police (Stasi), she keeps her distance, but is warm and protective towards her patients, and has a welcome bedside manner.
Her suspicions arise on the first day when the easy-going chief physician André Reiser gives her a lift home, but does not ask about her background as one would on becoming acquainted. He also does not ask for address, yet knows both. Nevertheless, both gain one another’s respect, she by questioning and correcting the diagnosis of Stella, a young pregnant girl who repeatedly tried to escape the Jugendwerkhof Torgau (a disciplinary institution for “difficult” juveniles), and he by developing a serum in his self-constructed lab to cure Stella’s meningitis.
In the meantime, Barbara’s West German boyfriend and lover Jörg is preparing her escape from East Germany. She takes secretive bicycle treks to the woods to meet him, and to stash her secret funds. Everything is ready for her escape: she will be picked up by a small boat in the Baltic Sea and taken the short distance to Denmark.
The night of her planned escape, a surgical emergency arises, and Barbara faces the moral dilemma of staying in the East to help her patients or leave everything behind for a golden future in the West.
If you happen to have seen Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) and appreciated it, do not miss this suspenseful psychological and political thriller.
You can catch a bit of the movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaS4zn8xagg
Christian Petzold is a German film director. He studied Film Direction at Berlin’s German Academy for Film and Television (DFFB) after completing his German and Drama studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. He worked alongside Harun Farocki and Hartmut Bitomsky as assistant director and, after graduating, he continued to make several interesting and successful TV films. For The State that I am In (2000) he won the Deutsche Film Preis. For Barbara (2012) Petzold won the Silver Bear for Best Director and was selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards. He is considered to be one of the leading directors of the Berlin School, which is a movement of young German filmmakers, shooting ambitious independent movies. In 2018 he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the entity responsible for awarding the Oscars every year.
Logistics for Houston-Leipzig Movie Night: Phoenix
Check-in begins at 6:15 p.m., the food and beverage reception at 6:30 p.m.. The meeting and movie will start at 7:00 p.m.. The fee of $15.00 for Houston-Leipzig members, of $20.00 for guests, and of $10.00 for students, contributes to the program costs and meeting space rental.
RSVP Here: Please respond to angelika@houstonleipzig.org or kathy@houstonleipzig.org.
Important Parking Information
Parking is limited on Lovett Boulevard – please observe all parking restrictions. Do not park across the street from L’Alliance Française (Lovett Boulevard between Whitney and Taft Streets). If you park there after 6:00 p.m. you will first receive an expensive ticket, and shortly thereafter, your car will be towed. There is plenty of parking on the side streets.