Marienborn was known as the most important and most guarded border crossing of the Iron Curtain. Many here worked for ‘the system’ as guard, accountant or waitress. In this hermetically closed-off place, where no westerner or outsider was allowed, the villagers formed a tight-knit community. Now tourists ask imposing questions, pilgrims search for healing at the village’s Holy well and an African asylum seeker, who ended up here by chance, tries to understand how life’s going here. An apparently closed-off community lives as if in a claustrophobic dream while trying to cope with the past.