The Berlin Wall was built for the filming of the TV series “GDR”
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Behind the scenes of a large-scale television project
The spy drama “GDR,” which will premiere on NTV on February 26, can be called one of the most ambitious projects of the season. The series about the events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall was filmed for almost a year in different cities and countries. “MK” looked behind the scenes of a large production.
The series takes place in 1989. The main character, KGB captain Nechaev, returns to Moscow after a failed special operation in Germany and is actually removed from operational work. A colleague asks Nechaev to monitor the Berlin music hall artists touring the USSR, who are capable of transmitting encrypted information to an American journalist. During a trivial mission, two people unexpectedly die, and the subsequent series of events will collide the espionage and geopolitical interests of several countries around the world.
The plot of the series is fictional, but is based primarily on Oleg Nikiforov’s book about the search for the secret Stasi archive and the confrontation between intelligence officers from different countries. Recreating the era of the late eighties is not an easy task. Artifacts of that time seemed to have been thrown away during European-quality renovations, so artists and decorators had to show a lot of imagination. Filming locations were found in Kaliningrad, Grodno, Brest, Minsk, Istanbul, where the series team found themselves immediately after the tragic earthquake. Scenes at the checkpoint from Germany to the GDR were filmed on the Fortress Bridge in Vyborg, and the scenery of the Berlin Wall with the checkpoint and the DEFA film studio were built in Moscow.
For some actors, filming in the GDR also became a reason for nostalgic memories. “In the late eighties, Tatyana Mikhailovna Lioznova, a great director, and I came to the GDR with the premiere of her film “The End of the World followed by a Symposium,” where I had the main role,” recalls Vadim Andreev, who played a Soviet diplomat in “GDR.” “I was then amazed by the abundance on store shelves; I brought home clothes and tea bags, which I treated to friends. We brewed each bag eight times. On that trip, I managed to approach the Berlin Wall – it was tall. I was very curious and jumped around, hoping to see something behind it in West Berlin.”
Actress Linda Lapins, who played the variety show lead singer Ingrid, had to jump while filming. But not near the wall, but from a window, from a decent height and without a backup. “I decided to play Tom Cruise, suggesting to the director: “Let me jump myself?” – says the actress. “In the end, we agreed with our stunt director, and I jumped. From the third or fourth floor – I don’t remember exactly, because everything was in a fog, starting from the moment when I climbed over the window sill wearing a safety net and stood on tiptoe on the ledge, literally holding on to it with my fingers. Got a lot of applause from the group.”
Also without understudies, the actors spoke German. They all admit that this language is very beautiful, but catastrophically difficult, especially when it is unfamiliar or almost forgotten. It was even more difficult for actor Kirill Zaitsev, because he played an American singer and actor (the famous Dean Reed served as the prototype for the role), who moved to Berlin. “I’m Russian, I play an American, but I have to speak German with an American accent for the sake of my role in a film about cowboys,” recalls Kirill. — In one of the scenes, I pronounce a long monologue, but I myself only studied German until the fifth grade, so I can’t speak and understand fluently. I had to remember and dive in.”
Newspaper headline:
World Intelligence Clash
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