Die Schüsse der Arche Noah
(1983)

Country: East Germany

Genre: War Drama

Synopsis

10-year-old Klaus Wensloff (Oliver Ohrt) lives in the last year of the Second World War, in a contradictory world. His father is an active anti-fascist, who hides vulnerable people, and calls Hitler a criminal. At school, however, Klaus hears from his revered teacher that Hitler is the ideal German. This is not the only contradiction in Klaus' life: his mother is a devout Christian, whilst his father is an atheistic communist. Klaus lives in a world where he must constantly conceal his parents' activities - any mistake could be life-threatening. After his mother is killed in an air raid, he is taken by his father to East Prussia, and as the Third Reich crumbles, he finds himself in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. Through all this chaos he finds comfort in the memories of his mother, and of her narration of the story of Noah's Ark, when mankind had to survive a different sort of catastrophe.

Notes

• Produced by DEFA, the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic
• Based on the 1970 novel "Die Sch?sse der Arche Noah oder Die Irrt?mer und Irrfahrten meines Freundes Wensloff" by German writer Peter Abraham (1936-2015)