Cinema listings with film information and movie reviews
Balloon (Ballon)
Director Michael Bully Herbig dramatises the incredible true story of two families from the German Democratic Republic, who escaped to West Germany in September 1979 in a homemade hot air balloon. East Germans face jail for attempting to flee their communist homeland and any that are brave enough to try must face landmines, barbed wire and bullets. Bricklayer Gunter Wetzel (David Kross) and his electrician friend Peter Strelzyk (Friedrich Mucke) hatch a daring scheme with their respective wives Doris (Karoline Schuch) and Petra (Alicia von Rittberg) and to make a balloon in their cellar, then fly from their homes in Thuringia to Bavaria on a strong northerly wind. It takes 18 months for the Wetzels and Strelzyks to realise their outlandish vision, including two failed attempts, then the time comes for the two families and their four children to soar into the night-time sky in the early hours of September 16.
