Spy/Master

"Go, you idiot, while you still can." Victor Godeanu, a high-ranking officer in Romania’s secret service and advisor to President Nicolae Ceaușescu, is only ostensibly addressing this survival tip to a wild bear he wants to spare while out hunting. In reality he is talking to himself. In 1978, with his espionage activities for the Soviet Union in danger of being exposed, he makes a risky move: during negotiations for the ransom of Romanian-Germans in Bonn, he offers himself to the US embassy as a defector.

Loosely based on a true story, showrunners Adina Sădeanu and Kirsten Peters have created a game of spy poker between the CIA, Securitate, KGB and Stasi in which no one is putting their cards on the table. In the six episodes, director Christopher Smith repeatedly breaks out of the narrative chronology in order to make the audience feel as disoriented as his protagonists – all of which is embedded in a detailed reconstruction of Romania and West Germany in the 1970s.

Source: 73. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)