Erica Jong - Breaking the Wall

At the end of a quarry, in a godforsaken place called Rotzloch, a new life begins for four young men.

For a month, filmmaker Dieter Gränicher lives in an institution, in the village community of the deaf. As an attentive and increasingly familiar observer, he gets closer and closer to the village's inhabitants, who often suffer from a variety of handicaps, as they go about their daily lives. The film tells the story of the nuances and vivacity of sign language. It portrays human beings who, with great expressive power, overcome the limitations imposed on them by their disability, deeply touching the person opposite.

Upon suddenly learning of her imminent death, Jacqueline von Kaenel begins to search for the key to her life. Unsparingly, she looks back and discovers how everything is connected; her youth in Franco’s Spain with her mother’s feudal past in eastern Prussia, her desire for music with the one for a dominant and powerful husband. In her ambition to be a perfect mother, she recognizes her fight for identity. But all of a sudden experiences from her childhood in a seemingly happy family crop up turning everything upside down.

What’s up with love? Can it still be found or is it a utopian dream? What keeps a couple together and where does desire take us? In its search for clues, the film comes upon two completely different couples: a first love and a last love. One begins unexpectedly via Internet, the other culminates in a shared dream of many years in Portland, Oregon. Meanwhile, Eva Illouz and Sven Hillenkamp discerningly crack the code of the impossible character of love, the findings of which the two couples discount.