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4:45 PM

Herzsprung

Film

  • Louis Koo Cinema, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hongkong

  • Price $ 75/60* *Tickets for full-time students, senior citizens, aged 60 or above, people with disabilities and the minder and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients.| Group Booking Discount: 20% off for purchase of 4 or more above standard tickets. | 20% discount to Goethe-Institut Hongkong’s students with a valid proof
  • Part of series: 30 Years Fall of the Berlin Wall - DEFA Classics Revisited

Herzsprung © DEFA-Stiftung_Helga_Paris

Director: Helke Misselwitz
1992 | 87 mins | German with English subtitles | 35mm | Colour

Introduction and post-screening talk by Christina Schmidt

Fear eats the soul in a small town

Herzsprung is one of the last handful of films produced by DEFA before the studio closed down after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its tragic mixed-race romance recalls that of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974), and is similarly intense and fierce.

Since the German unification, the small town of Herzsprung remains unchanged except its sharp rise of unemployment. Johanna, a young mother, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. Her husband has committed suicide and she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer. As the lovers become the talk of the town, the threat of death also lurks in corners.

Nominated for Outstanding Feature Film, German Film Awards 1993