The Flight (1977)

When Dr. Schmith's (Armin Mueller-Stahl) proposal for international research on infant mortality is rejected, he decides to leave East Germany and strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children's hospital in West Germany. But then the decision is reversed: the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the GDR section. He falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina (Jenny Gröllmann). Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly... As the topic of escaping to the West was taboo in the GDR, The Flight is an exception in East German film history. The film, which won the Grand Prix at the Karoly Vary International Film Festival in 1978, was the last one Armin Mueller-Stahl made at the East German DEFA studios. In 1980, only two years after the release of the film, he left East Germany for the West because of professional restrictions imposed upon him after he joined protests against the expatriation of the dissident singer/songwriter Wolf Biermann.