MISSILE FROM THE EAST

By Justin STOKES

SPHERE ABACUS - as SALES

Documentary - Completed 2021

He has an impossible choice; win the World Championship or make a bolt for freedom...

    • Year of production
    • 2021
    • Genres
    • Documentary
    • Countries
    • UNITED KINGDOM
    • Duration
    • 90 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Justin STOKES
    • Producer(s)
    • Mike WELLS, Nick TAUSSIG
    • Synopsis
    • Against the backdrop of the 1961 Swedish Grand Prix, prodigiously talented East German motorcycle racer Ernst Degner flees the Iron Curtain – risking his life in the hope of freedom – as he defects to the West in a heart-stopping stunt with his family and Stasi-protected engine technology.

      Returning to the racetrack the following season with Suzuki, the driver wins the world championship and catapults the Japanese industrial giant into global domination of the motorcycle industry.

      Set where two worlds collide – the colour and freedom of the West contrasts the oppression and threat of Cold War East Germany. It’s Bridge of Spies meets Senna, a cloak-and-dagger world with lethal Grand Prix motorcycle racing and one family’s death-defying, dramatic bid for freedom.