Aufbruch in die Freiheit

Story

A woman decides on a new, self-determined life. The drama tells one of the stories behind Stern magazine’s 1971 cover story “We had abortions!” The German provinces in the early 1970s: Erika (Anna Schudt) is mother of three children and works in her husband’s (Christian Erdmann) butcher’s shop. She learns she is pregnant again, but she cannot face the burden and secretly has the child aborted. When her husband finds out, he’s extremely angry. Then there’s the fights about their eldest daughter, whom the husband would like to recruit for the shop, but who’s been given a recommendation for secondary school. Spontaneously, Erika flees with the children to her sister’s (Alwara Höfels) in Cologne and begins rethinking her life.

Director

ISABEL KLEEFELD (*1966) was assistant director to some of Germany's best directors, including Sönke Wortmann, Detlev Buck and Oliver Hirschbiegel, before herself directing films like Schluss with lustig (2001), Ruhm (2005) or Was ich von dir weiß (2017).