Stefan Lampadius

Somewhere in Brandenburg: ten artists join forces to form the artists' colony Rakete Perelman where they can live the dream of self-determined existence.

Between the years 1949 and 1990, roughly four million people left the GDR for West Germany. „West“ (adapted from the book by Julia Franck) tells the story of a young mother, who together with her son, leaves the GDR to try for a new beginning in the West. But she discovers she has to undergo more interrogations by the Allied secret services who treat many refugees with the suspicion that they may be working for the Stasi. The Emergency Refugee Centre turns from a place of safety into a cold war location, proving once more that one cannot leave without taking along one’s past. With great personal and political power, „West“ shows the difficulties of daring to start a new life - if the past has taken away all faith.