Adapted - very loosely - from Otakar Rambousek's short story "What the Deputy Said," Martin Kopp's political thriller The Border recounts the travails of journalist Karel Rubeš. In the immediate postwar era, Czechoslovakia's Communist State Security regime initiated "Operation Kameny," a nefarious and ugly attempt to root out as many subversives as its operatives could pinpoint. Tagged as seditious, Rubeš immediately had to go underground in the face of incarceration and thus made quiet preparations to escape from totalitarian hell. He contacted numerous transporters and set about arranging his own delivery over the Šumava border into West Germany - but little did he anticipate the mantrap that awaited him at the end of the tunnel. Kopp relays Rubeš's experiences with heightened detail, an admixture of political undercurrents, and a great emphasis on hair-raising suspense. This program originally ran on Czech television but later did the festival circuit.
by Nathan Southern
synopsis
