A film by Konrad Wolf

East Germany, 1950: two young people are arrested after the police raid a barroom brawl. Instead of a prison sentence they are forced to work in a uranium mine in Wismut. As chaotic as a wild west gold rush town, their new “home” is full of characters with unusual destinies - old anarchists working next to former SS members working next to Russian officers. Emotions collide, as well as fists.

Banned at Soviet insistence, this socialist story impresses even today with its political complexity, variety of characters, and realistic portrait of daily work in a forbidden zone of the industrial landscape.