Fly, Rocket, Fly! – Mit Macheten zu den Sternen

In the organizer's words:

Fly, Rocket, Fly! - With machetes to the stars
DE/BE 2017-18, Oliver Schwehm, 90 min.

While Elon Musk was still playing with building blocks, engineer Lutz Kayser was already developing a concept for low-budget rockets that led him to found the world's first private space company in 1974. Orbital Transport- und Raketen AG (OTRAG for short) is financed by amortization and thus provides the necessary financial resources to get off to a flying start. Kayser also knows how to circumvent the ban on rocket launches in Germany. In Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of Zaire, he finds a supporter who leases OTRAG a gigantic test site the size of the former GDR. In the middle of the Congolese jungle, a secret spaceport is created, a German Cape Canaveral complete with its own butcher's shop and marijuana plantation. But OTRAG soon finds itself at the center of a global political conflict ...

We are showing the film on the occasion of OTRAG's 50th anniversary in cooperation with Bureau B in the presence of Markus Hilß, producer of the film, and Peter Sauter, film protagonist and former chief technician at OTRAG.

Price information:

reduced 6 Euro (for members of the Kinemathek)