10 · 22 · 19 Goethe Institute Program at the 17th FICM Share with twitter Share with facebook Share with mail Copy to clipboard Aranza Flores @Alvayeah Jenny Mügel presented Gundermann, by Andreas Dresen Aranza Flores As part of the Goethe Institute Program, which every year allows the screening of important German films, the head of Cultural Coordination of the Institute, Jenny Mügel, presented the screening of the film Gundermann by Andreas Dresen. Jenny Mügel The film Ballon, by Michael “Bully” Herbig, is one of the films that make up the Goethe Institute Program within the FICM. The story develops in 1979, when the world’s attention was on the Cold War in Germany, a country divided into East and West. “Thirty years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, we want to present these stories that show how life in Germany was at the end of the nineties, and in the cycle, we have several films that go on this theme,” explained Jenny Mügel, head of the Cultural Department of the Goethe Institut Mexiko. The story in the film takes place in a small town in Thuringia, East Germany, where the Strelzyk and the Wetzel families want to flee the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Their first attempt to cross the border in a homemade hot air balloon fails, and it crashes a few meters from the border. The Stasi (political police of the GDR) finds out about the escape attempt and searches with all means for the fugitives, considered enemies of the State. Meanwhile, both families, aware of this great danger decide to build a new balloon. This is how a race against time begins. The plot of Ballon is based on real events and it shows one of the most daring escape attempts of the GDR to the German Federal Republic (GFR), which achieved historical fame under the name ballonflucht (balloon escape). Herbig’s film received the German Cinema for Peace Award - Die Brücke and was nominated to the German Golden Camera Award.
