Syrian filmmaker Khaled Abdulwahed interviews his father Sadallah, who left for the GDR as an exchange student in 1956. The conversations from Leipzig to Aleppo and back about this time are wrested from telephone connections that are repeatedly interrupted. These sound recordings are montaged to the retouching and reconstruction of black and white photos combined with current views of the city. BACKGROUND is a quietly told family story that makes you feel the voids all the more intensely. An important part of East German history in the context of today, that repeatedly intrudes the image. (Clara Winter)