Nina Hoger in Marleneken (1990)

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A German girl’s maturation parallels the tumultuous course of historical events in her country in the sweeping dramatic mini-series Marleneken (1990). Hannelore Hoger stars as fifty-year-old Marilena, an East German woman who stands at the border between East and West Germany in 1989 and thinks back on her childhood in a war-torn homeland. From the bombings of WWII to the strict boundaries of the Cold War, Marilena remembers her life in a series of flashbacks that tie into a broader geopolitical context. And because no coming-of-age story is free of sexual fumbling, Marilena looks back on her very first encounters with the opposite sex in a couple of mouth-watering remembrances featuring Hannelore’s real-life daughter, Nina Hoger, as young Mailena.