Forwards Ever! (2017)

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Director:

Francis Meletzky (as Franziska Meletzky)

Writer:

Markus Thebe

Stars:

Jörg Schüttauf, Josefine Preuß, Jacob Matschenz

3 wins.

Cast

Credited cast:
Jörg Schüttauf	...	Otto Wolf / Erich Honecker
Josefine Preuß	...	Anne Wolf
Jacob Matschenz	...	August
Hedi Kriegeskotte	...	Margot Honecker
Marc Benjamin	...	Matti Stein
Steffen Scheumann	...	Boris Kelm
André Jung	...	Hans Götze / Erich Mielke
Alexander Schubert	...	Egbert Rauch / Egon Krenz
Stephan Grossmann	...	Theodor Dombrich
Devid Striesow	...	Harry Stein
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Till Florian Beyerbach	...	Gruppenführer
Samia Muriel Chancrin	...	Stasifrau Birgit Müller
Damir Cosic	...	Sasha Kurlensky
Christoph Glaubacker	...	Stefan Schäfer
Tom Keune	...	Wolf-Dieter Seifert

Storyline

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Genres:

Comedy

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Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie title is based on the Erich Honecker quote "Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer!" (Forward ever, backward never!)

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Goofs

When Egon Krenz asked since when Margot Honecker is commanding Erich Honecker around he gets the response "Since 1950". This is obviously a reference to their personal relationship. However Erich Honecker and Margot were officially married since 1953 and had an affair since 1948.

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Quotes

Rettungssanitäter: [mistaking the fake Honecker for the real one] It is impressing how good his shape is. This skin, so young. Touch it.
Margot Honecker: We haven't been touching each other for a very long time.

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Crazy Credits

The opening closing credits are showed in the style of a TV broadcast with interferences.

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Connections

References Aktuelle Kamera (1952)

User Reviews

This is a plain insider movie

It very much borrows from 'To be or not to be', the 1942 movie of a theatre troupe playing a piece on Hitler, when at some moment in time the actor is needed to step in for the real Hitler. Great fun.

And here almost everything is in parallel, except that the actor has to play Erich Honnecker, the former strongman of the former GDR.

The whole lot comes across totally hilarious, though probably only to native Germans old enough to have had sufficient contacts and knowledge of the former GDR. The typical East-German dialect and the typical mumbling of Erich Honnecker, the typical Berlin dialect of the daughter, and the actual occurrences in the autumn of 1989 are almost a prerequisite for a full enjoyment of this movie. Original clips like the expatriation of Wolf Biermann are used to drive the plot. (I guess the majority of Germans wouldn't know of those things that happened in 1977.)

One can but laud the ability of this movie to being hilarious by just scratching along a very specific reality. And one could at the same time question the undertaking to do that 28 years later, and based on plots and scenes and a personage and language dialects taken from a very specific reality and most probably only working in exactly that reality.

The current rating of 5.5 is not realistic. Those unacquainted with the background will surely find this movie very artificial if not boring. I'd feel likewise, had I not acquired this background knowledge through some decades of exposure to this system. From this angle I might as well have given a 10.

Details

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

12 October 2017 (Germany)

Also Known As:

Forwards Ever!

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company Credits

Production Co:

ARD Degeto Film, Crazy Film, Roxy Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Color:

Color