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It's Friday the 27th of September 1973. Way too warm for a late September day, as the weather records prove. Suzi Quatro's "Can The Can" is the number one hit in the German single charts and on this very day "La Grande Bouffe" hits the cinemas – but Reinhold Huff will discover that later. It will be his last day in the GDR.

"Der Duft Des Westens" ("The Aroma Of The West") dedicates itself to the few hours and kilometres which claim the illegal trespass of the Inner German border. Nevertheless, an ostensibly endless and nearly unpromising escape. On his way he nervously passes a police check. Writhing through the thicket of a dense spruce forest while evading a spotlight. Chased by drooling dogs and almost getting caught. Mistakenly taking the seemingly redemptive second border fence back in the wrong direction. The motivation of the flight is assisted by retrospectives of recurring yearnings, such as the frequent "Westpaket" and his visits to the cinema as well as the suffered repressions with him ending up in an interrogation by the Ministry for State Security.

This short is a collegiate coproduction from Arne Breusing and Mark Huff, whose father has underwent the described escape. All textures are authentic prints – from original letters and protocols to newspapers and comics settled in the contemporaneous surroundings of the escape – a so called real existing paper world. The stereoscopic movie was made as a Bachelor Thesis on the University of Applied Science and Arts Hannover.

Sterescopic Version / Teaser