Synopsis
This documentary film voyages along the Baltic coast to the Soviet Union on the GDR maiden cruise ship, the "MS Völkerfreundschaft" (MS International Friendship). Ulrike Knorr offers us an imaginary stay aboard the MS Völkerfreundschaft, a holiday boat which up until 1985 carried meritorious workers, winners of the national lottery, sick people on cures, as well as the regime's privileged ones. The journey centers on human beings and their stories--people taken off on a historic movement that is above and beyond them. The cruise brings out all the contradictions of freedom on a boat. It also puts forth the idea of a boat as a "replica of the GDR," an island and a world of luxury on foreign seas. Author Ulrike Knorr confronts the promises of distant destinations and the reality of limitations within the GDR. Leagues away from the current wave of "Ostalgia", she uses personal stories and recollections to present a different kind of case.
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