Einfach raus (1999)

On May 2, 1989, the barbed-wire fences along the Austrian-Hungarian border are dismantled. At that time, several East German citizens are planning trips to Hungary: 21-year-old Andreas Hallbrandt wants to go with his parents to the Hungarian Grand Prix; Michelle and her boyfriend Hans are traveling to Budapest for a vacation; and Manfred and Renate Reimann want to take their 16-year-old daughter Martina on holiday at Lake Balaton. Events in Hungary affect the families in different ways: Andreas, whose father is a party secretary at a school, spontaneously decides to flee to the West. Michelle sets off on vacation intending to escape, although her boyfriend knows nothing about it. Renate and Manfred also plan to flee, but have not told their daughter. Renate and Manfred let Martina in on their plans, and at the end of July 1989 they are admitted to the West German Embassy in Budapest, where they apply for asylum. Michelle initially tries to find someone at her holiday destination who will smuggle her across the border. She flirts with an Austrian, but he rejects her escape plans. So she finally confides in Hans. After some time to think it over, he agrees to flee to the West with her. Hans’s mother has a disabled child and depends on the car for frequent medical appointments—the car Hans and Michelle used for their holiday trip—so Hans asks his good friend Jörg to take the car back to East Germany. On August 14, Hans and Michelle can no longer get into the West German Embassy, which has closed because it is overcrowded; instead, they are taken to Pastor Imre Kozma’s Maltese Zugliget camp, where they live alongside numerous East Germans hoping to leave the country. One day, Hans’s friends Angelika and Jörg also turn up there, wanting to leave as well. Hans eventually decides against fleeing, since his family needs the car. He returns to East Germany. Angelika and Jörg manage to escape to Austria across the open border during the Pan-European Picnic in mid-August. Andreas is camping with his parents. He sneaks away from the campsite at night and tries to cross the Austrian-Hungarian border on foot. Hungarian police catch and detain him, but then release him. He returns to his parents, who, after some discussion, understand his plan to flee. Andreas applies for a German passport, which is issued to him in Budapest a few days later. He goes to the Zugliget camp, where he meets Michelle. He also meets sensationalist reporter Dieter Korn, who initially wants to present him as a typical refugee and later uses him as an informant in the camp. Andreas is supposed to provide him with sensational stories from the camp, which the reporter himself is not allowed to enter. The camp residents soon beat Andreas up, and after a while Korn loses interest in him. In East Germany, Andreas’s appearance in the West German press, along with his plan to flee, leads to his father being dismissed from his jobs as party secretary and teacher. Meanwhile, things begin to move for the East German refugees in Budapest: On August 22, 1989, the embassy occupants learn that they will be flown to West Germany. Andreas, who has met Martina, is distraught as he watches her bus drive away, since he does not even know her name. On September 10, it is the turn of the refugees at the Zugliget camp: they learn that they are allowed to travel to Austria using their passports. Andreas and Michelle, who have become friends at the camp, embrace and promise to meet again in the same place in ten years, if they are still as happy then as they are now. Ten years later, Andreas returns to Budapest. He remembers Michelle and Martina. Michelle does not show up, leading Andreas to conclude that perhaps she did not find happiness. His car has a Potsdam license plate in the scene, from which it can be inferred that he returned to eastern Germany.