BARBARA has been chosen as the official German entry to be considered for nomination in the Academy Awards’ best foreign language film category.
East Germany, 1980. Barbara Wolff (Nina Hoss) is a talented young doctor who has applied for an exit visa from the GDR and, as punishment, has been transferred from her prestigious post in Berlin to a small pediatric hospital in the country. Even though she is constantly aware of the shadowy presence of, and overwhelming numbers of Stasi officers chronicling her every move, every waking hour, she arrives at her new post having already planned a series of dangerous assignations with her lover, with whom she plans to escape to the West, to Poland.