Short Synopsis
1973: Nine of Anke’s extended family are arrested by the East German secret police (Stasi), for trying to escape to the West.
Just before her third birthday, Anke is snatched from her mother‘s lap in a Stasi interrogation office. It’s more than 5 years until she’s reunited with them — and she does not recognise them or even know who they are. “Why is everybody crying?”
Anke is lucky. A grandfather not involved in the escape plan has ‘connections’. He is able to rescue her from the institution where she’s being held in a room with 20 other children of political prisoners — with regular punishments that we would now call torture.
Her grandfather takes Anke to live with him, since the rest of the family are imprisoned for 2-3 years, before being ‘sold’ to the West.
One day two strangers appear at the door, and take Anke away from the home where she has finally become settled. These relatives take her to the West and eventually to her parents — but to her it feels like another abduction.
The catastrophes they have all undergone are too much for the reunited family unit to survive. Yet again Anke feels abandoned.
She grows up, and eventually wins a scholarship to the USA. Another scholarship winner is Jan — with whom she now has two teenage daughters.
After seven years in the USA, Jan is offered a dream job — where?
In Leipzig — where Anke’s horrendous childhood began. Returning to the former East Germany with two toddlers brings forgotten or repressed memories to the surface. Anke now needs to tell her story — not only to help herself come to terms with her past, but also to express her passionate desire to promote the need for us to care for ALL the world’s children, to try to prevent the kind of damage done by the Chinese to the Uyghur children, by Trump to the children at the Mexican border, and by repressive regimes like that of the former East Germany.
How did this Film come about?
I was introduced to Anke by a mutual friend, when I was making my first feature, “An Accidental Berliner” — see below. In a Leipzig restaurant Anke and I talked for more than 5 hours. Clearly I could not do justice to her story in 5 minutes within my Berlin film. But I felt compelled to vow to Anke that, when I could, I would return to Germany from New Zealand to put her story on camera.
In late 2019, we began. At the end of the year I returned to NZ, fully expecting to be back in a few months to complete the shoot. But — Covid!
For multiple reasons, it has taken till now for the stars above Anke and myself to align, to enable me to head back to Germany for another two months of filming.
Maybe the delay was meant to be! Some dreams are now possible that weren’t in 2019 — e.g. we can visit the prisons and other institutions that weren’t open to us back then. Plus, their daughters are more grown up…
Anke’s relationship with her parents has always been strained — unsurprising, given that they were the source of her trauma. But when she told her father that we were making this film, Uli said he wanted to support her. He is now part of the story, explaining to us what had happened in his early life to make him so desperate that he put his elders and young family at extreme risk — with awful consequences — for the sake of Freedom.
So, what was to be just Anke’s story is now not only their contrasting stories, but also that of an attempt to salvage a relationship.
Who Are We?
Anke Fleckenstein —
Anke and her husband Jan are university teachers in Leipzig in the former East Germany; Anke’s subject focus is Intercultural Relations. Anke’s musically talented daughters are now in their mid-late teens…
Ulrich Müller —
Uli is a retired surgeon who specialised in shoulder repair, and now specialises in long-distance motorcycling!
Tony Forster —
I am a theatre director recently turned documentary film-maker. For many years my work as a ‘first assistant director’ for screen projects has subsidised my more personal creative and cultural adventures — such as when I feel propelled to share a story like this one.
For a long time I was invited to work with Māori film companies in NZ, supporting film-makers, and mentoring and training young Māori for the industry. I’ve also tutored at tertiary institutions (and elsewhere) in most aspects of theatre and film craft.
My first feature-length documentary recounts my experience of being in Checkpoint Charlie as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. After a day-trip into East Berlin, I returned to the Western part of the city, alongside and talking with the first two East Berliners allowed into the West that crazy night. As well as my own profoundly moving experience, the film shares stories of my friends from former East and West, exploring the impact of the Wall on their lives.
You can view it here (free):
Link https://vimeo.com/187622046
Title “An Accidental Berliner Release H264"
Password AABDec2016
Your Contribution:
The 2019 stint of filming I self-funded — with some invaluable support from the Goethe Institut in NZ and some close friends. My travel to Germany in March and some associated expenses are already covered; but the point has arrived where I am forced to recognise that the present budget is insufficient. Now I am seeking a relatively small amount to cover costs that have risen in the last five years, such as accommodation and our internal travel within Germany.
If things go super-well, and this invitation is oversubscribed, any extra funds gathered will go towards the costs of post-production.
(NB: Documentaries extremely rarely make a profit. We take no wages or suchlike from this project.)
I have recently received a number of queries about the invitation to add a "Tip" for Indiegogo to each contribution (not for the fundraiser).
NO !! It is ABSOLUTELY NOT compulsory.
But it is IMPORTANT to note that you have to OPT OUT of the tip, by un-clicking the box beside it, should you not want to add it.
The tip would be in addition to the percentage of funds raised that Indiegogo takes at the end of each campaign.
What You Could Also Do:
We are very well aware that the sudden rise in the cost of living world-wide means that many of us can no longer easily make contributions to projects such as this. But worry not! You can still help — immensely. One thing you can do is share the news about “Abducted”, and this campaign, with friends and colleagues. Email, Facebook, however…
Just copy/paste what you wish from this page…
Perks / Rewards
To the right of the page you’ll see a column listing “perks”, or “rewards” as they are sometimes known. This is something that I find difficult — it’s hard to work out rewards that would be genuinely appreciated, but are not be too time-consuming or expensive to carry out!
So, have a look at the column on the right, and if you have any suggestions regarding these or other potential rewards, or the qualifying levels, please put it in the Discussion Tab of this page, or contact me directly.
Thank You!
Now that I’m focused on making my own films (rather than helping others fulfil their cinematic dreams), I am immensely humbled by the extraordinary amount of support, both moral and practical, that I have received over time. Nothing I have done would’ve been possible without that support, and so, I heartily thank once again everyone involved, in whatever way — small or large — then, and now.
