He who wants to leave the country is regarded as a traitor. This, at any rate, is how Sybille Schönemann is treated. Having applied for permission to leave the country, she ends up in a secret-police prison. After re-unification she seeks justice, and so sets off with her camera in an attempt to take the culprits to task. Hardly anyone however is willing to speak with her. The director shot one of the first documentaries about the "stasi". The result, moulded by her personal point of view, is a touching account that poses questions about personal responsibility in the context of a dictatorship: are those who only followed orders guilty of committing any crime?
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Sibylle Schönemann
Thomas Plenert
Ronald Gohlke, Ulrich Fengler
Tamás Kahane
Sibylle Schönemann (Sprecher)
defa-spektrum GmbH
Dorothée Basel
Chausseestraße 103
10115 Berlin
Germany
Tel: +49.30.246 562 116
Fax: +49.30.246 562 150
d.basel@defa-spektrum.de
Sybille Schönemann - born 1953 in Berlin. Worked as an assistant for DEFA before studying directing from 1974-1980. After being unofficially blacklisted she applied for an exit visa, leading to a term of imprisonment before subsequent expulsion from the GDR.
RAMONA (1979, Cottbus 2004)
DIESE TAGE IN TEREZIN (1997, doc)