The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)
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Ulrich Mühe portrays Stasi captain Gerd Wiesler in "The Lives of Others."
(© picture alliance / Mary Evans Pi)
This Oscar Award winner is set in 1980s East Berlin. Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) has been assigned to collect evidence against dramatist Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his longtime girlfriend, the celebrated theater actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedech).
Party-loyalist Wiesler hopes that the surveillance he conducts will help his career with the East German secret police since the assignment ranks high in importance with the cultural minister. Listening in on every action of the couple exposes him, however, to new things and ideas – love and literature as well as free thinking and speech. He becomes more and more engrossed in their lives, but this experience also begins to shake the foundations of his beliefs. The film, both a political thriller and human drama, takes a serious look at the moral choices people made as a result of the surveillance conducted under the regime of the German Democratic Republic.
The Lives of Others was the debut feature of director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. In addition to receiving the Academy Award for best foreign language film in 2007, the film swept the 2006 German Film Awards and was awarded honors at numerous international film festivals.
The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen)
2005 - Germany
