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Arts & Culture

The Wall: A World Divided

This documentary looks deep inside the revolution that swept across Europe two decades ago — with the November 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall — to understand how this remarkable event helped end the Cold War without a shot being fired. Pictured: Berlin, November 10, 1989.
Ullstein Bild/Granger Collection
This documentary looks deep inside the revolution that swept across Europe two decades ago — with the November 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall — to understand how this remarkable event helped end the Cold War without a shot being fired. Pictured: Berlin, November 10, 1989.

Airs Monday, August 8, 2011 at 10 p.m. on KPBS TV

"The Wall: A World Divided" looks deep inside the revolution that swept across Europe two decades ago — with the November 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall — to understand how this remarkable event helped end the Cold War without a shot being fired.

The film explores the lives of ordinary people caught up in Cold War politics: a young father forced to tunnel beneath the wall to reunite his family; a teenager whose love of pop culture got him in deep trouble with the state; a student activist helping make a peaceful revolution while facing down tanks; and a young man broken by the ruthless interrogation methods of the secret police.

The film also goes behind the scenes with political leaders — George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, Helmut Kohl, James Baker and Condoleezza Rice — to reveal the tense moments surrounding the wildly unexpected series of events that resulted in a new Europe in less than a year.

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"The Wall: A World Divided" was written and directed by Eric Stange. Watch the film trailer.