Five short films about life with The Berlin Wall, which marked the deadly borderline that cut through the city for 28 years, symbolising both the division of Germany as well as the state that entrenched itself behind it.

These award-winning short films explore life in East Germany, with its restrictions and state surveillance, in distinctly different ways. Many of the films deal with the power and powerlessness of both the Stasi and individual people. The documental piece “RADFAHRER” demonstrates the constant shadowing that photographer Harald Hauswald was subjected to; in “DIE KLÄRUNG EINES SACHVERHALTS” the filmmakers tell of the Stasi’s tyrannical methods of repression and in the entertainingly defiant fantasy, and in “DETEKTIVE” the entire surveillance system is unceremoniously reduced to absurdity.

For a list of films in this programme please visit the Encounters website at encounters-festival.org.uk.

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