Rethink Rebuild Society invites you to a screening of the film:
Barbara (2012)
Followed by open discussion
Directed by: Christian Petzold
Runtime: 1 hour and 45 minutes
Certificate 12A
Language: German with English subtitles
On: Wednesday 19 July 2023 at 7.45pm
At: Rethink Rebuild Society, First Floor, Discovery House, Crossley Rd, Levenshulme, Manchester SK4 5BH
Please arrive on time as the screening will start at 8pm promptly.
The film
Barbara is a Berlin doctor who’s banished to a small country hospital for applying for an exit visa to leave East Germany in the 1980s.
Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays aloof, especially from the good-natured clinic head, Andre. Instead, Barbara snatches moments with her lover as she secretly prepares to defect one day.
Despite her plans, Barbara learns more about her life that puts her desires and the people around her in a new light. With her changing perspective, Barbara finds herself facing a painful moral dilemma that forces her to choose what she values.
“Inside this simple story the film slowly explores a series of political, ethical and personal dilemmas, which Barbara faces. She is fully committed to her escape from the GDR, but also to the Hippocratic oath she has taken to care for her patients – an oath that threatens constantly to destabilise her plans for escape.
A richly deserving winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Barbara demonstrates that there were no simple solutions to living in the GDR, and that charity and forgiveness are not always rewarded, while redemption can come from the most unexpected quarters”. Ben Schofield, King’s College London
