LEANDERS LETZTE REISE

92-year-old Eduard Leander, a former German Wehrmacht officer, has never talked about his wartime experiences, despite the dark shadows they cast over his family. His granddaughter Adele can’t stand the bitter old man. When Eduard’s wife dies, his daughter tries to put him in a rest home. But instead, he sets off to find Svetlana, the woman he fell in love with during the war when he fought the Red Army with the Cossacks. Eduard has no idea if she survived. Adele goes after him to try and get him off the train to Kiev, but then finds herself unwillingly joining him in his quest. On the way, they meet Lev, a charismatic Russian Ukrainian. He and his family are also trapped by their history. Adele falls in love with him, but it is 2014 and war between Russia and Ukraine is looming.

The gripping and touching drama about love, forgiveness and the long shadows of the past sends its protagonists Jürgen Prochnow (THE BOAT, THE ENGLISH PATIENT, THE DA VINCI CODE) as the old man and Petra Schmidt-Schaller (STEREO, MY LIFE IN ORANGE), one of the most talented German actresses as his granddaughter, on an exciting road trip through a land in turmoil.

Director

NICK BAKER-MONTEYS was born in Berlin in 1964. He gained a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Stirling in Scotland and worked as a journalist for different London newspapers before moving to Berlin in 1990 shortly after the Wall came down. Since then he has worked in Germany as a writer, director and script consultant on films for cinema and television, and is a guest lecturer and tutor at the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) in Berlin. His films include: PERFECT MOMENT (short, 2006), THE MAN WHO JUMPED CARS (2010), and THE FINAL JOURNEY (2017).