DER HELSINKI EFFEKT + Filmgespräch

With film introduction, with film guests and discussion

• DE/FI/NO 2025
• 88 min
• Director: Arthur Franck
• FSK: from 0 years
• Documentary: Original version with German voiceover and subtitles where applicable

Q & A with producer Stefan Kloos after the screening

The internationally critically acclaimed documentary film by Arthur Franck takes a fascinating look at the historic CSCE negotiations in Helsinki in 1975. The film is made exclusively from archive material and is narrated by actor BJARNE MÄDEL. With an almost satirical arrangement of AI-generated soundtracks of former secret documents, he brings the political actors of the time to life in a way that is as bizarre as it is authentic. While the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev pushed for the recognition of the borders of the Eastern Bloc after the Second World War, Western Europe and the USA under Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger fought for democracy and human rightsAfter tough negotiations, 35 heads of state finally agreed on a compromise.
For a long time, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was seen as an endless diplomatic battle without meaning - in retrospect, it changed the world, laid the foundations for the end of the Iron Curtain and heralded the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
THE HELSINKI EFFECT celebrates diplomacy as the art of bringing nations together and agreeing on mutually beneficial principles. It celebrates the importance of dialog as a prerequisite to finding solutions for coexistence: The leaders of the superpowers 50 years ago were bitterly opposed to each other, but they still talked to each other. Today more than ever, the film has great contemporary relevance.