Father and Enemy

Jörg Hejkal is a Cologne-based photographer who fled the German Democratic Republic in 1984 after he discovered that his father was spying on him for the Stasi (East German Secret Police). Director Susanne Jäger chronologically reconstructs Jörg's life story up to his arrival in West Germany. She uses a swift montage of archival footage, interviews and dramatisations, and with Jörg Hejkal she re-visits the past key locations. A voiceover reads from the many reports Hejkal's father delivered to the Stasi. Upon discovering this, Jörg crossed the border into Yugoslavia while on holiday in Hungary and into a void, which took years until he gained his freedom. Along with the film crew, Jörg retraces his escape route, once more ending up in the Berlin prison where he was detained for two years. In the early 1980s, through contacts in the East-Berlin punk scene (archival footage), he found cohorts who helped him to enter the American Embassy (West-German newscast footage). This culminated in a successful escort to West Germany. Now, he sits on the couch with his former housemate, whose Stasi affiliation Hejkal was unaware of at the time. The filmmakers also interview the then West-German ambassador, the GDR lawyer who carried out the negotiations and eventually, at the end of the documentary, Hejkal's father, who is still living in the east of Germany with his wife. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)