Night Crossing

Night Crossing is a 1982 American drama film starring John Hurt, Jane Alexander and Beau Bridges. The film is based on the true story of the Strelzyk and Wetzel families, who on September 16, 1979 attempted escape from East Germany to West Germany in a homemade hot air balloon during the days of the Inner German border-era when emigration to West Germany was strictly prohibited by the East German government. It was the final film directed by Delbert Mann.

Plot

The film opens with a brief summary of 1961's then-current conditions in East Germany and nature of the border zone, featuring stock footage such as Conrad Schumann's jump over barbed wire in Berlin.

In April 1978, in the small town of Pößneck, Thuringia, a teenager, Lukas Keller, attempts to escape East Germany by riding a bulldozer through the Inner German Border Zone. However, he is shot by automatic machine guns and is left for dead by the guards; his family is informed while having a picnic with their friends, the Strelzyks and the Wetzels. The Keller family are taken by the police. Finally fed up with his life under the GDR regime, Peter Strelzyk (Hurt) proposes a daring plan to his friend Günter Wetzel (Bridges): they will build a balloon to carry themselves and their families (eight people total) over the border to West Germany. They purchase 1,250 square yards of taffeta (claiming it is for a camping club); Günter sews the fabric together with a sewing machine in his attic and Peter experiments for months to construct a hot air balloon burner. Of course, they face setbacks: fires while trying to inflate the balloon, struggles to build a burner with sufficient power, extremely suspicious neighbors, and doubts about the plan's workability from Günter's wife, Petra.