Stupid Years

Regine's husband Wolfgang has dementia, and with the loss of his memory, Regine's world also seems to be disintegrating. For decades, the couple had lived with their two children, Katja and Daniel, in a small town in East Germany – at times separated, but always connected, despite their different attitudes towards the state, the SED or reunification, which brought long-awaited freedom for Wolfgang, while Regine soon lost her job. Now she is once again facing an end and a new beginning, and in order to perhaps better understand the present, she travels back into the past, where she encounters herself in different phases of her biography.

How much does the country in which one grows up shape one? And what happens when that country suddenly stops to exist, even though one has not changed places? Without passing judgment, but with great love for his characters, Thomas Freyer tells the story of a woman in whose private life historical upheavals are reflected almost in passing, and who ultimately asks herself whether she has really made the best of her life.