Beyond the Blue Border

Germany / 2024 / 102’ 
Director: Sarah Neumann

Based on a novel by athlete-turned-author Dorit Linke, writer-director Sarah Neumann’s feature debut is a gripping, youth-centred historical drama set during the final bulwark of authoritarianism in 1989 East Germany. That summer, twentysomething Hanna (Lena Urzendowsky of Cannes winner and German Oscar submission “Sound of Falling”), a gifted swimmer with Olympic ambitions, elects to abandon her podium dreams when best friend Andreas (Willi Geitmann) is targeted by the secret police for transgressions against the state. Their path to freedom? A treacherous, open-water swim across 50 kilometres of the Baltic Sea, with only a rope tethering them together.