3 1/2 Stunden (2021)

On the day the Berlin Wall was built, August 13, 1961, the passengers on the interzonal train traveling from Munich via Augsburg, Nuremberg, Bamberg, and Ludwigsstadt to Berlin Ostbahnhof in Friedrichshain (East Berlin) face the difficult decision of whether to get off in the Federal Republic of Germany before the inter-German border or continue on to the German Democratic Republic. They have three and a half hours before crossing the border. Among those shown are a young band returning from a poorly attended concert in the West, including a gay couple who know that their love is still punishable in the West; a gymnastics coach and her top pupil; a couple with the woman’s child born out of wedlock, who plan to marry in Ludwigsstadt the following day; an elderly couple carrying the urn of the woman’s late brother, whose son fled to the West two years earlier; and the four-member Kügler family. Gerd Kügler had a job interview in Munich for a position as an aircraft engineer. His ideologically loyal wife, Marlies, is the daughter of People’s Police officer Paul Fuchs. Meanwhile, Bavarian detective Arthur Koch is investigating a doping case that resulted in a death. Finally, we see locomotive engineer Edith Salzmann, who is to take over the train to East Berlin at the border crossing in Ludwigsstadt/Probstzella and is traveling to Ludwigsstadt for that purpose. She is accompanied by Kurt Blochwitz, a DEFA documentary filmmaker commissioned by the Party to portray her as a deserving worker. The two fall in love, partly because they share a fondness for the Western film The Big Country. However, on the outbound journey to Ludwigsstadt he has to remain behind at the border—the border where Edith stops on the return journey so that she can stay in the West.