Der irrationale Rest

In the former GDR of the eighties three inseparable friends, Matthias, Susanne and Suse, have just turned twenty. Everything changes dramatically when Susanne and Matthias attempt to escape from the GDR, leaving Suse behind. Their attempt fails; they are arrested, and subjected to psychological torture by the secret police. After they are released from incarceration, they lose touch. 16 years have to pass before they are ready to be confronted with the past and meet each other again. Their love and friendship have turned into deep mistrust. Today, Matthias, deeply marked by his experience, gives guided tours for tourists through the prison where he was interned. Susanne works as a nurse in the western part of Berlin, a dream job, which was impossible for her in the GDR because of her political attitude. Suse is the only one who stayed in the Eastern-Berlin district of Pankow where she now lives with her husband and three children. After she was forced to leave university because of her friends’ state betrayal, her dream to become a teacher was never fulfilled. The three of them revisit the scenes of the past: Matthias and Susanne wander once again through the woods on the border between the former GDR and Czechoslovakia where they were arrested. Susanne stands in the prison cell where she was once incarcerated. Even after 16 years, the repressed memories are still painfully present, and in the branded souls, the irrational remains. (DOK.fest München)