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Set right after the German unification in 1990 Helke Misselwitz’s leap into fiction is a tragic reckoning with racism and reactionary tendencies in a lost place robbed of its identity. The film’s original title refers to a village called Herzsprung close to the freeway between Berlin and Hamburg but it also describes an act of falling in love. The beautifully filmed work follows Johanna, a young, jobless widow who gets in a relationship with a black man working at a diner next to the freeway. Not everybody accepts their love. Although Misselwitz finds some tenderness for all characters, there is a profound despair at work that culminates into a scream whose echoe resonates until today.
![HERZ_6_Johanna_Jakob_Copyright_DEFA-Stiftung_Helga_Paris.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/0d8112_7581962bf09b42af8a50983a494f9860~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_585,h_419,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/HERZ_6_Johanna_Jakob_Copyright_DEFA-Stiftung_Helga_Paris.jpg)
© DEFA-Stiftung - Helga Paris
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