Budapest Classic Film Marathon 2026: Divided Heaven

This movie adapted from the novel by Christa Wolf examines the emotional and political crisis during the period after the construction of the Berlin Wall (1961) just a couple of years after the brutal division of the city. Rita returns to her village following a nervous breakdown. She looks back on the past few years when she fell in love with Manfred, an ambitious chemist. Their relationship goes awry when Manfred becomes disillusioned with socialist bureaucracy because of its rejection of his innovation. The man escapes to West Berlin and expects Rita to follow him. Recalling the style of French Nouvelle Vague, the film is honest and daring in its portrayal of the difficulties encountered in everyday life in East Germany, its bureaucracy and generational conflicts, not to mention the taboo subject of defecting to the west, for which it was banned in the German Democratic Republic several times.