September 14, 1958: In the private estate of General and Prime Minister of France, Charles de Gaulle (Jean-Yves Berteloot), people are waiting for German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer (Burghart Klaußner). The delicate, precautiousl prepared meeting, was to mark to end the hereditary enmity between France and Germany, begins with a delay. Political differences quickly become apparent in the one-on-one meeting, and rapprochement threatens to collapse. Even the advisors to the two statesmen, Günther Bachmann (Fabian Busch) and Gaston De Bonneval (Vincent Lecuyer), are openly airing their fundamental differences of opinion behind closed doors. Outside the gates of de Gaulle’s private residence, journalists are impatiently waiting for results. During this meeting, French photographer Hélène Wissembach (Nora Turell) and German journalist trainee Elke Schmitz (Nadja Sabersky) meet. Both dream of a peaceful future in a united Europe and call on politicians to work towards it.

 

In other roles: Hélène Alexandridis, Ronald Kukulies, Pierre Lognay, Muriel Bersy, Maïlys Dumon, Alice Hubbal, Rüdiger Klink, and others.

The film is a ZDF production commissioned in cooperation with ARTE and produced by Network Movie Film- und Fernsehproduktion GmbH, Cologne ( Wolfgang Cimera) and made in munich content & films GmbH (Mark von Seydlitz). The editors are Matthias Pfeifer (ZDF) and Julius Windhorst (ZDF/ARTE). Kai Wessel directed the film. The screenplay was written by Fred Breinersdorfer.