The Berlinale, as the event is known, showed “The Silent Revolution” to an audience of around 30 inmates at Tegel penitentiary, one of Germany’s largest prisons with nearly 900 inmates.
Most are serving long sentences for serious crimes, justice officials said.
The film by Lars Kraume dramatises an until-now obscure chapter of Cold War history in which East German high school students in 1956 were exposed on a visit to West Berlin to newsreel footage of the uprising in Budapest against the communist authorities.
When they returned to their town the Polish border, they decided to hold a minute’s silence in their classroom for the fallen Hungarian freedom fighters.
School administrators tried to play down their gesture of solidarity, but the unnerved authorities of the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR) cracked down hard.
When the education minister insisted that the boys name the instigator, they were forced to make choices that would have a far-reaching impact on their future, three decades before the Iron Curtain would finally be breached.
– ‘Solidarity’ –
Inmates said they appreciated the chance to escape their daily grind for a little touch of the glamour and drama across town at the Berlinale.
“I found the story really emotional, especially the rebellion,” said Benjamin, 40, who like all the inmates were barred from giving their full names or details of the reasons or their incarceration to reporters.
“But also how you can really have an impact on other people — you see some parallels with prison life,” he told AFP.
Polish national Hamsa, 64, said the movie made him nostalgic for a simpler time.
“I really liked it — you don’t have that kind of solidarity anymore,” he said.
“I knew the GDR like the back of my hand — I travelled through the whole GDR in the 1970s. It wasn’t as strict as you see in the movie.”
Joerg, 42, called the “suspense and sadness” of the story “perfect” as well as its tribute to “loyalty” under tough circumstances.
He noted that not all the inmates of Tegel were allowed to accept the Berlinale’s invitation to the screening, held in a recreation room at the prison.
“We had to fill out applications and then the prison management decided who got to come,” he said, complaining that “too few inmates” got to take part.
Joerg said movies were a rare treat behind Tegel’s high walls, with just one or two screenings a year.
It was only the second time the Berlinale offered a prison screening after a previous event showing a documentary at Tegel four years ago.
Sebastian Brux, spokesman for the Berlin city-state government’s justice department, said the security measures taken for semi-public events such as the Berlinale screening were adjusted based on the number of inmates attending, without providing further details.
He said the authorities in the German capital believed that culture was an important component of prison life, noting that there book readings, theatre plays and concerts were scheduled regularly.
The Berlin film festival runs until Sunday.
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