In 1980s East Berlin, prior to the fall of the Wall and reunification, the first cracks in communist Europe are beginning to appear.
Successful young playwright Georg and his celebrated actress girlfriend Christa-Maria are suspected of dissidence and placed under Stasi surveillance by the East German Minister for Culture. But unexpectedly, the quintessential Stasi agent assigned to their case begins to question his own attitudes to freedom and the role of art as he comes to admire Georg’s courageous stance against the authoritarian regime.
When the Minister starts blackmailing Christa-Maria into betraying her husband, his true motives are exposed, revealing his own cynicism and by expansion the moral decay eating away at the state more broadly.
The Lives of Others is a muscular, thought-provoking, multi award-winning thriller which manages to marry the personal and the political in a powerful indictment of a corrupt society where democracy is a dirty word.
