Peter Planitzer

In the little town of Herzsprung - whose name harks back to an ancient legend of broken hearts - almost nothing has changed since German unification, except a rise in unemployment. Johanna, a young mother and widow, becomes one of the unemployed and lives on welfare. To make matters worse, she falls in love with a dark-skinned, roving adventurer and the whole village starts talking about it.

In early summer 1989, Helke Misselwitz portrays young musicians in a band who produce their music on other people’s waste items. The four boys call themselves "Bulk Rubbish" and they drum out their resentment, having grown up on the new housing estates of East Berlin. A straight-up picture of the GDR youth is presented here, which in no way conforms to the official image. The film crew concentrates on the observation of the boy Enrico and his mother Erika: when the mother marries in the West, her son decides to stay in East Berlin, bidding her farewell at the border-crossing. Only shortly after, the tables are turned again: as the events in Berlin leading up to the fall of the Wall are practically captured live from the film crew, Enrico insists on maintaining his cultural identity, even after the fall of the Wall. The "Bulk Rubbish" musicians want to remain citizens of their own state and perceive the looming reunification with scepticism.

Polizeiruf 110 is a long-running German language detective television series. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic, and after the dissolution of Fernsehen der DDR the series was picked up by ARD. It was originally created as a counterpart to the West German series Tatort, and quickly became a public favorite.