RSVP
Intro and Q&A: Victoria Rizo Lenshyn (in person)
When Dr. Schmith’s (Armin Mueller-Stahl) proposal for international research on infant mortality is initially rejected, he decides to leave East Germany. He strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children’s hospital in West Germany. But when his project is approved, his international colleagues want him to head the East German research section. Moreover, Dr. Schmith has fallen in love with his new colleague, Katharina (Jenny Gröllmann). When Schmith tries to avoid the escape agency, they blackmail him, and the result is deadly. The film received the Grand Prix at the 1978 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Director: Roland Gräf
East-Germany 1977
94 min.
German with English subtitles
© Victoria Rizo Lenshyn
Victoria Rizo Lenshyn is the Associate Director of the DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst. Her research has primarily focused on GDR cinema with concentrations in Film Studies, Star Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Following a doctoral dissertation on gender and film stardom in East Germany, her current research project is a multimedia environmental humanities project that looks at how the East responded to an environmental crisis that was shaped by socialist ideology and economic imperatives, and how individuals collaborated across the political line and physical barrier of the Berlin Wall to address one of the most enduring and pressing issues of the time.
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