Balloon (film)

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Movie
Original title balloon
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2018
length 125 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Michael Herbig
script Kit Hopkins ,
Thilo Röscheisen ,
Michael Herbig
production Michael Herbig
music Ralf Wengenmayr ,
Marvin Miller
camera Torsten Breuer
cut Alexander Dittner
occupation

Ballon is a German thriller by Michael Herbig that was released in German cinemas on September 27, 2018. The film deals with the crossing of the inner-German border by the Strelzyk and Wetzel families from the GDR to West Germany with a self-made hot air balloon , which has become known as balloon flight .

action

In Berlin, the Strelzyk family stays at the Hotel Stadt Berlin to establish contact with the US embassy

Summer 1979 in Pößneck, Thuringia . The Strelzyk and Wetzel families have the daring plan to flee the GDR to the West in a self-made hot air balloon. Now that the wind conditions are perfect, Günter Wetzel is too dangerous. He thinks the balloon is too small for eight people, and his wife Petra is afraid for their two children. Therefore, they jump off the escape attempt at short notice. Doris and Peter Strelzyk now want to dare to escape alone with their two sons. Son Frank has fallen in love with Klara Baumann, the daughter of his neighbor Erik, who works for the Stasi , and writes her a farewell letter.

At night the Strelzyk family packs the balloon and other accessories in their trailer, drives into the forest and takes off with the balloon. Hidden in the clouds, they cannot be seen by the border guards. However, the balloon goes down with Doris, Peter and their two sons Frank and Andreas "Fitscher" in the gondola shortly before the border, because the pipes from the gas bottles to the burner iced up and blocked. None of the four is injured, they get back to their car unobtrusively and destroy all evidence. Frank just manages to get the letter to Klara Baumann back to himself. The Stasi discovered the attempted escape and, under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Seidel, began the investigation, which had the balloon found secured. He interrogates the border guards who were on duty at the time of the attempt to escape and accuses them of not taking their job seriously enough. The investigators narrow down the radius in which the balloon must have started and thus also the circle of suspects.

For the next few weeks, both families lived in constant fear that the Stasi could connect them with the attempt to escape. Doris in particular is concerned because she lost her medication in the forest, which the Stasi has important information on the basis of the numbered pill boxes. Peter really wants to try again. Before that, however, they travel to Berlin, where they hope to be able to get out of the country with the help of the East Berlin US embassy, ​​but this attempt fails. Peter is able to convince Günter to make another attempt to escape. Since they must be careful in obtaining the materials, family members only buy small quantities of suitable fabric in different cities. Günter sits at the sewing machine every night to join the pieces of fabric. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Seidel is sitting on the back of the neck. At all costs he must prevent the GDR from embarrassing itself by attempting to escape.

As already feared by Doris, the investigators can trace their medication back to the local pharmacy, where now all recipients of the tablets are to be identified and checked. The Stasi publishes photos in the press of objects that the Strelzyks had to leave behind at the landing site of their first attempt. Günter has to move the sewing work to the Strelzyks' cellar because his neighbors have become aware of the constant running noise of the sewing machine. When Frank realizes that Klara's father, Erik, has to go to the pharmacy because someone is wanted, and that a north wind is the order of the day, the prerequisite for their escape, they want to make the second attempt that same night. When the Stasi employees break into their apartment, the families are already on their way to the starting point. The start is not as perfect this time as on their first attempt and when the gas runs out they have to land in a forest after half an hour's drive. At first it is not clear whether they have successfully crossed the border. Peter and Günter then explore the area and come across a patrol car belonging to the Bavarian police. When they are told by the police that they are in Upper Franconia , the joy is enormous. Lieutenant Colonel Seidel and his superior must appear at Erich Mielke 's. Erik Baumann is interrogated by the Stasi.

Ten years later Doris and Peter Strelzyk watch Hans-Dietrich Genscher's announcement from the Prague embassy on television that the GDR citizens gathered there are allowed to leave.

production

Staff and funding

“When the escape happened I was the age of Fitscher, the younger son of the Strelzyks, and when I saw the Disney film I was the age of the older son Frank. And what I could understand was that these people risked everything for a life in freedom. This daring, the madness of this story - that totally absorbed me. "

- Michael Herbig

The director is Michael Herbig , who prepared the film for six years. He had already met Günter Wetzel, a former GDR refugee, a few years ago and had his escape story told him. In 1978, Wetzel and a former colleague came up with the idea of crossing the GDR border in a self-made hot air balloon . As early as 1980, a film about the same event was produced by Disney under the title With the Wind to the West , which premiered in 1982. When Herbig saw this, he was Frank Strelzyk's age.

Herbig said an attempt had been made to acquire the remake rights, and it turned out that both families had sold their story "skin and hair". He showed the contracts to various lawyers, who advised him against further efforts. Finally, Herbig was able to establish contact with Disney through Roland Emmerich . Herbig had consultancy agreements with the Strelzyk and Wetzel families. Herbig financed the film through herbXfilm with 700,000 euros. In addition, the film received funding of the same amount from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and production funding of 1.25 million euros from FilmFernsehFonds Bayern. The German Film Funding Fund granted production funding to the amount of 2,049,800 euros, the Central German Media Funding to the amount of 150,000 euros and the Film Funding Agency a production funding to cinema amounting to 650,000 euros. herbXfilm is producing the thriller for the first time with StudioCanal and SevenPictures as co-producers.

Herbig went through the script in detail with director Leander Haußmann .

Krischan Koch from NDR Info explains that Herbig strives for authenticity in his film down to the smallest details. Nevertheless, Ballon was not a film about state security and political oppression in the GDR. Rather, Herbig has the drama of this escape in view. Norbert Koch-Klaucke also remarks in the Berliner Zeitung that after the successful escape, real life wrote a completely different script for the two families that the film does not show: “A new drama begins. After the successful escape, which made headlines in the West and embarrassed the GDR worldwide, the two families are now feeling the vengeance of the SED state. They are being persecuted by the Stasi in the west. ”On the one hand, they wanted to persuade the families to return to the GDR, on the other hand, according to the Stasi files , Mielke's spy system initiated the operational process of“ pear ”immediately after the spectacular balloon escape in order to prevent the balloon refugees from living in the west to make hell.

Filming and equipment

In the open-air museum of the walled city of Mödlareuth , where the film was shot in October 2017, there are preserved GDR watchtowers

The shooting took place in Bavaria , Thuringia and Berlin and started on September 18, 2017 in Munich . In October 2017, the film was shot in Nordhalben , where the town was made to look like in the GDR in the 1970s, and in the walled village of Mödlareuth , which is partly in Bavaria and partly in Thuringia. Recordings were also made in Berlin in October 2017. The Hotel Stadt Berlin shown in the film is today's Park Inn Hotel on Alexanderplatz . On November 24, 2017, filming was finished after 50 days of shooting. Torsten Breuer acted as cameraman .

Herbig had insight into the Stasi files of the escape and into the photos of the balloon gondola, which were taken by the Stasi at the crash site. These photos can be seen in the credits of the film along with a few other recordings. The two balloons used in the film were not created on the computer, but actually recreated. The second balloon was 32 meters high, consisted of 1,245 square meters of fabric and had a volume of 4,290 cubic meters. The real escape balloon was not available as it was being restored. Nevertheless, green screen technology was used during the shooting . The real escape balloon is exhibited in the Museum of Bavarian History in Regensburg, which opened in June 2019.

Film music and publication

The soundtrack was composed by Ralf Wengenmayr and recorded by the Babelsberg German Film Orchestra . Sidney Schering fromquotemeter.de thinks that the music of Herbig's main composer does its part to ensure that Ballon develops such an enormous tension. Wengenmayr holds back with his music for large parts of the film, but whenever the music comes to the fore, a grueling, modern force of sound resounds: "Similar to Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk , in which Hans Zimmer keeps the ticking of a clock sounding, In Ballon , too, a short, cool beat runs through the score, which relies on distorted percussion, cool synthesizers and cutting string sections. "The song Bummi, Bummi used in the film , which Ms. Wetzel hums in the balloon to calm the children, was actually sung by the real Ms. Wetzel in this situation.

Friedrich Mücke , here at the screening at the Zurich Film Festival , plays Peter Strelzyk in the film

A first trailer was published at the end of June 2018. Ballon celebrated its world premiere on September 12, 2018 in the Mathäser Filmpalast in Munich. Günter Wetzel and the two sons of the other family, Frank Riedmann and Andreas “Fitscher” Strelzyk, were also present at the premiere. Herbig, on the other hand, was prevented for health reasons.

The film was released in German cinemas on September 27, 2018. In autumn 2018 there were also screenings at the Zurich Film Festival and the Haifa International Film Festival. A cinema release in the United Kingdom took place on June 14, 2019. Ballon received a distribution grant of 200,000 euros from FilmFernsehFonds Bayern and 150,000 euros from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg .

reception

Age rating

In Germany, the film was approved for ages 12 and up . The statement of reasons for the release states: “The film describes the background to the escape in detail and builds up sustained tension due to the constant threat situation with clear good-bad drawings. Some dramatic passages, the sometimes gloomy atmosphere and individual depictions of violence can frighten children of primary school age. But since 12-year-olds already have enough knowledge and media experience, they can place these aspects in the historical context and distance themselves sufficiently. "

Reviews and grossing results

Andre Petzer from epd Film thinks that Michael Herbig is realizing his first serious drama with aplomb, as if he had never done anything else. Herbig takes dramaturgical liberties when he reduces the three escape attempts to two and condenses the long tinkering with the second balloon to six weeks, but he manages to create very emotional moments and he also creates images that burn into themselves. You can watch the filmmaker completely reinvent himself, says Petzer: “A director who uses the whole range of suspense cinema. And who succeeds in banging along until the last minute, although the end is known. At the very end there is a bitter punchline. When the fugitives land in Upper Franconia, a Bavarian asks: 'How many are still coming?' Suddenly the film is very close to today's refugee crisis. And makes it clear that it was not that long ago that Germans also fled because they saw no future. "

In the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Karoline Meta Beisel writes less euphorically that the film is covered with a "sober music carpet like in the most beautiful private television event two-part series" and that there is "a little too much of everything: too much music, too much pathos, too much drama" .

Michael Herbig at the presentation of the film at the Zurich Film Festival

The film critic Antje Wessels says that Bully Herbig not only gives the film significantly more prestige with its name, but also proves its staging finesse: “Without just thinking about his new existence as a thriller director, he keeps throwing funny moments he lets all his know-how about little things such as a dynamic cut or the correct image division flow into his work and in the end creates a maelstrom of tension, drama and much, much humanity, above all because his story, despite all predictability developed. In Ballon, Herbig is always very close to his protagonists. "

Benjamin Wirtz from Kino-Zeit emphasizes the contemporary equipment and praises Herbig for taking the time to "portray his characters as people", but "still never neglecting the thriller". He only disapproves of the fact that Herbig is too often “on the wrong track”, because “the high number of such misleading but easily understandable scenes” means “that the highlight is immediately seen through at the end of the film”.

Moritz von Uslar criticized in the time the Biedere the film and stated that it was a "big staged and a tough little escape history."

From the German Film and Media Review was balloon with the predicate particularly valuable provided. The reasoning states: “Herbig stages the cat and mouse game between the Strelzyk family and the investigator Seidel like a crime thriller and especially towards the end with breathless tension. The music perfectly supports the drama of the situation, the setting, the décor and the costumes leave no doubt about the high research effort and the attention to detail. The system of the GDR itself is shown with all its reprisals, but Herbig also finds fine nuanced nuances for the attitude of the citizens towards their homeland. That makes Ballon a highly exciting, precisely staged and differentiated film about the apparently unattainable desire for freedom - which came true. "

In Germany, 902,642 cinema-goers had seen the film by the end of 2018. Ballon was in the preselection for the German Film Award 2019 .

Use in school lessons

The online portal kinofenster.de recommends Ballon for the subjects of history, politics, social studies , German , ethics and geography and offers materials for the film for the classroom. In spring 2019, the film was presented as part of the SchulKinoWochen in Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Bavaria.

Awards

Web links

Commons : Ballon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for balloon . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 181902 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Age rating for balloon . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Susanne Lenz: Film review “Ballon”: “The question of why is a Wessi question”. In: Frankfurter Rundschau, September 26, 2018.
  4. ↑ Bully Herbig is making a film about a Thuringian family escaping from a balloon In: insuedthueringen.de, June 23, 2017.
  5. ↑ Medienboard funding commitments June 2017 In: medienboard.de. Retrieved January 28, 2018 (PDF; 231 kB)
  6. ↑ Production overview In: dfff-ffa.de. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  7. ↑ MDM funds 33 projects with 3.7 million euros In: Leipziger Volkszeitung / pressreader.com, October 27, 2017.
  8. ↑ Up soon in the cinema sky: Bully's 'Ballon' In: spielfilm.de, September 14, 2017.
  9. ↑ Company history In: herbx.de. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  10. ↑ Krischan Koch: "Ballon": Dramatic escape from the GDR. In: NDR Info, September 26, 2018.
  11. ↑ Norbert Koch-Klaucke: “Ballon” by Bully Herbig The Stasi drama that the film does not show. In: Berliner Zeitung, September 17, 2018.
  12. ↑ Bully lets 'balloon' rise In: mediabiz.de, September 18, 2017.
  13. ↑ Nordhalben: filming causes traffic jams In: Frankenpost, October 10, 2017.
  14. ↑ Töpen-Mödlareuth: Mödlareuth becomes a film set In: Frankenpost, October 28, 2017.
  15. ↑ Christina Hertel: 'Bully' is looking for extras for his GDR film In: welt.de, 18 August 2017.
  16. ↑ Medienboard presents balance sheet 2016: 'Made in Berlin-Brandenburg' is a global brand for films In: berlinboxx.de. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  17. ^ A b Susanne Lenz: Michael "Bully" Herbig on "Ballon": "The madness of this story" . Berliner Zeitung, September 22, 2018. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
  18. ↑ https://www.abendblatt.de/kultur-live/kino/article215403847/Flug-in-die-Freiheit-Ballon-von-Bully-Herwig.html
  19. ↑ Sidney Schering: "Ballon": Bully can also excite. In: quotenmeter.de, September 26, 2018.
  20. ↑ Björn Becher: Michael “Bully” Herbig can also get goose bumps drama: The first trailer for “Ballon” In: filmstarts.de, June 28, 2018.
  21. ↑ Bully's "Ballon" is convincing across the board. In: Stern Online, September 13, 2018.
  22. ↑ Start dates in Germany. In: insidekino.com. Retrieved January 28, 2018.
  23. ↑ Balloon Balloon. In: zff.com. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
  24. ↑ Stars, films, numbers: the most important things about the Zurich Film Festival. In: bluewin.ch, September 13, 2018.
  25. ↑ balloon. In: haifaff.co.il. Retrieved November 1, 2019.
  26. ↑ https://www.fff-bayern.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Vergabemeldung/FFF_Vergabem nearly_Film_Juli_2018_final.pdf
  27. ↑ Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg supports 'Der Fall Collini' by Marco Kreuzpaintner with 1.1 million euros. In: filmbiznews.de, October 11, 2018.
  28. ^ Reason for release for Ballon In: Voluntary self-control of the film industry. Retrieved October 10, 2018.
  29. ↑ Andre Petzer: Review of 'Ballon'. In. epd film, September 21, 2018.
  30. ↑ Karoline Meta Beisel: With a lot of pathos in the West. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 28, 2018.
  31. ↑ https://www.programmkino.de/content/Filmkritiken/ballon/
  32. ↑ Bully is serious. In: kino-zeit.de , accessed on October 1, 2018.
  33. ↑ Moritz von Uslar: Heat up the material properly. Die Zeit, September 19, 2018, accessed on March 13, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Ballon In: fbw-filmbeval.com . German film and media rating. Retrieved September 17, 2018.
  35. ↑ Top 100 Germany 2018. In: insidekino.com. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  36. ↑ preselection. In: deutscher-filmpreis.de. Retrieved March 13, 2019.
  37. ↑ balloon. In: kinofenster.de. Retrieved June 30, 2020.
  38. ↑ Film selection. In: schulkinowoche-bw.de. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
  39. ↑ Film overview. In: schulkinowochen.nrw.de. Retrieved January 20, 2019.
  40. ↑ https://www.euroherz.de/die-bruecke-michael-bully-herbig-erhaelt-filmpreis-fuer-ballon-5358546/
  41. ↑ 28th Annual Heartland International Film Festival Announces Filmmaker Award winners. In: wbiw.com, October 22, 2019.
  42. ↑ German Camera Prize 2019 - The nominations. In: deutscher-kamerapreis.de. Accessed April 2, 2019 (PDF)