Workers reconstruct a railway bridge and Eva Fritzsche reconstructs the process behind it – by re-enacting what she couldn’t film, supported by the participants, who re-play themselves. The film sings the praises especially of those whose commitment was held in low esteem: young people who even give up playing football, and women who suddenly find themselves working in the factory. “Women as blacksmiths, what a joke!” a job centre employee sneers. This echoes what Eva Fritzsche herself had to listen to at DEFA: “Women don’t make films!” Yes, she did – and created one of the most impressive testimonies of the years of reconstruction.

On 23 August 1989, the people in the Baltic states demonstrated their solidarity against the Soviet occupation and took to the streets for their sovereignty. They formed an over 600-kilometres-long human chain stretching through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Touching images of a one-of-a-kind event, captured in a lyrical composition.