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The world premiere of Michael “Bully” Herbigs new Film “balloon”

Director Michael “Bully” can Herbig funny not only, but also exciting: In his first Thriller, the escape of two families from East Germany in a hot air balloon. Now balloon “world” celebrated its premiere.



With the Bully-Parade in TV and movie comedies such as “The Shoe of Manitu” or “(T)spaceship Surprise – period 1” showed Michel “Bully” Herbig, many years ago, that he is a master of humor. However, the guarantor for blockbuster movies in the light compartment it has in terms of directing even more. His first serious movie “balloon” had on Wednesday evening in Munich, the world premiere – a piece of German-German history. The spectacular and daring escape of two families from East Germany told Herbig in the West.

Cast off and in the direction of freedom

The facts: in 1979, ten years before the Opening of the Iron curtain was so dense and impenetrable as ever. Only rarely managed people to flee from the GDR to West Germany. And if it succeeded, then one such escape in the West German media and society was greeted with undisguised applause. “Better wessis” not yet, “Easterners” in the West of the GDR were considered a dictatorship-citizens, predominantly as victims of the SED.

Spectacular, brave, daring

Balloon-sewing to exhaustion

In this case, the applause on the successful escape was especially great, because the two Thuringian families Strelzyk and Wetzel succeeded at 16. September 1979 escape with a secretly self-built hot-air balloon. Four adults and four children in a gondola of nearly two square meters, on a 30-Meter-high balloon envelope made from 1245 square meters of fabric. The escape balloon he built had a capacity of 4200 cubic meters of air. He wore the two families at night, in half an hour 18 miles away, up in the Bavarian border town of Naila.

A first escape attempt had been taken by the family Strelzyk around ten weeks, but the built hot-air balloon crashed a few hundred meters before the border of the restricted area. The radicals were, of course, found by the GDR border troops.

Stasi and army search on track

Because the state was trying to determine the security service of the GDR, high pressure, the potential refugees, the Strelzyks the family Wetzel to the trust, so that together and in a rush, a new balloon made. This time the project ended successfully. How the Stasi dealt with the two families, a document of 2000 pages in the former Gauck authority.

Theme is a personal concern

All of these facts, Director Michael “Bully has processed” Herbig, now in his film “balloon”. Interviews with the protagonists, or the information from the Stasi files have been incorporated into the screenplay. This event for the cinema to implement was the Munich-based concern. He was eleven years old, as the sensational managed to escape, and this event has him released to his own statement, never again. “I was fascinated by the story and therefore it was important for me to get to the families as early as possible in the boat,” said Herbig in the ARD-tagesthemen.

Director Michael “Bully” Herbig

In 2011, he made nails with heads, and began with the planning of the film – knowing that there was in 1982 a Disney film of the event with the title “With the Wind to the West” – a Film that was not met, however, the content of the families involved in a number of passages just to consent. “Balloon” was shot after five years of preparation, in the fall of 2017. 50 days in the GDR-Flair rotary, with dramatically compressed the time of events is already exciting.

In the German cinemas balloon comes at the 27. September 2018. It remains to be seen how this without a sense of Humor auskomm the end, but it is tremendously exciting to arrive “Bully”-a Thriller to the audience. The 39 years ago escaped a couple Wetzel was thrilled.

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