Neben der Zeit

An East German community finds millions in soon-to-be-worthless marks during 1990s reunification, and take what they can carry.

A tragi-comedy telling the story of the adventures of Robin, Anna, Jost and Leo - the meds - who want to be anything but healthy, happy and mediocre. They all live in a large city in West-Germany and are "Westies" to the core. Precocious, disillusioned, morally eroded, politically bored and sexually sated. Always on the run from the next compromise, they are big kids caught up in their mid-twenties crisis. One day in the midst of all this depression the suspicion arises that one of them is in fact a closet "Eastie", a liar and betrayer, an undercover agent, a neo-Nazi or at least a Stalinist...

Docudrama telling the story of a building with a breath taking career that began in the empire, flourished in the Weimar Republic, perished in the Nazi dictatorship, and was rebuilt after its partial destruction.

This report was broadcast on ARD in 1993. In 43 minutes, the development of psychiatry "in the third year after reunification" is shown using two institutions in the new federal states as examples. A touchstone for all of psychiatry and disability care to this day. The film shows a shocking way in which disabled people are treated. The commentary uses the perspective of those affected. 50 years after euthanasia in Germany, this documentary reminds us of this once again.

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.

The army of the GDR, called NVA had not survived the reunification of Germany, it was completely absorbed by the Bundeswehr and scrapped subsequently. But what apparently went on so smoothly as a peaceful unification of hostile brothers quietly left deep scars in the East German landscape.

Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.