Ice-cold Reunification – The story of the last GDR-expedition to Antarctica

10th November 1989, at the GDR-Antarctica-Station “Georg Foster”, in the evening: it was the radio operator who spreads the news: “There are people on the wall in Berlin – the border to the West is open.” Everyone’s astonished, someone assumes: “That is not possible, they’re testing us psychologically.” Almost a year later: While the national anthems are sung, the flag on the roof of the station is being pulled down, and the one is being set. Someone plays the trumpet. The Russians are shedding tears, the Indian are filming. The Germans welcome the new nation. It is the 3rd of October 1990.
In October 1989 ten male GDR researchers and nine female FRG researchers independently take off into the Antarctic and experience the German reunification tens of thousands of kilometers from home. They establish radio contact and share henceforth their joy, their fears and their bewilderment concerning the events in their small country on the other side of earth. On 3rd October 2010 is the 20th anniversary of the German reunification. The film reconstructs with original footage, amateur videos, diary entries, documents and accounts of contemporary witnesses the weeks and months between the arrival of the eastern German researchers in autumn 1989 and the western German researchers in January 1990 and their departure in spring 1991.

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Written by: Anna Schmidt and Ernst-Michael Brandt
Direction: Anna Schmidt
Director or Photography: Jens Bungies
Sound: Olaf Schuller
Editor: Tom Chapmann
Support: Susann Krüger
Air Date: 2010