A Hole in the World

A Hole in the World

In 1979 East Germany, the two friends Jonas and Fred decide to dig a tunnel to Australia when they get a boomerang from the West.

The end of the 1970s in Communist East Germany. Fred and Jonas are best friends. The two ten-year-olds have a carefree childhood near the Wall to West Berlin. But when Jonas’ single mother applies to go to the West, their peaceful youth is thrown out of whack: Jonas and his mom are labeled enemies of the people, and Fred and Jonas aren’t allowed to see each other anymore. Instead, they secretly hatch a plan to dig a tunnel to Australia in the Brandenburg sand so they can hang out together again. But when Jonas suddenly leaves for the West, Fred is devastated. The grown-ups pretend like nothing happened. What Fred doesn’t know: Jonas ran away from his mom because their friendship is more important to him. He trains to exhaustion at a party sports academy in Potsdam so he can travel to Australia one day as an Olympic athlete. Will the two friends ever see each other again?

Childhood fantasies versus East German socialist reality. A refreshingly innocent view of a dark chapter in world history, illustrating the Kafkaesque nature of Eastern Bloc Communism.