Andreas Dresen Film Series
Production Year 1992
Duration / 98 min.
GDR in autumn 1989. The director of a pretty run-down provincial theatre introduces a new colleague to his troupe at the beginning of the new season: the young producer Kai Finke is planning to stage Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". The first meeting of members of the cast produces a scandal: one of the players interrupts the director's speech and demands that he make a statement on the events in Hungary and the embassy in Prague. In other words, these are the days in which refugees from East Germany are storming the embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague and Hungary en masse in the hope that they will be allowed to emigrate to the west.
The incident is ignored by the director and the party secretary. Kai enthusiastically starts to work, refusing to let the sorry state of his surroundings get him down. His colleagues' lack of enthusiasm causes him a great deal more worry and the rehearsals are tough and inconclusive. The producer sees clear parallels between the political situation and his play: above all, he would like to highlight the hopelessness of waiting, but he is unable to give an answer when his leading actor Horst asks whether the hopelessness lies in the circumstances or people's heads. The East German media are still playing down the situation and attacking the West.
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