Ein Augenblick Freiheit

One of the rare films that is made only once in a while, a unique combination of human suffering under a dictatorial regime, hope to escape and live in freedom, struggle to remain courageous, meaning of family, desire to find love, but most of all, lack of understanding and desire of the world outside to help those who have managed to escape a cruel regime and their only desire is to live in freedom.

The story evolves around a family of an Iranian political activist, his young wife and their son, two children and two friends who are trying to take them to their parents already in Austria, and an older and younger man.

All these stories follow the same fate of refugees from Iran via the mountains to Ankara, Turkey, where they are waiting for a UN refugee status. While they wait they live at a filthy pension always beware of the Iranian secret police and trying to cling to their hope.

What distinguishes this film from others is the sensitive portrayal of the characters and the range of the things that drive them, wittingly knitted together by a plot that combines the most serious moments with those that make you smile, all time keeping the story believable.