Winter '89

Being a carefree student with a zest for life in one of the Soviet Union's satellite nations wasn't a simple proposition. Art student Maria quickly learns the consequences of dallying with bad cop Karol when her university friends turn away in fear of Karol's motives and methods. Given his task to inform, contact and help torture “subversives”, their fear is well grounded. In fact, Karol is also a victim of his profession. Shifting in time between their '70s romance, courtship, marriage and the birth of their child, Nina, and 1989, when Maria has fled her homeland to the Netherlands, the film juxtaposes both the changes wrought by time and the East-vs.-West socio-cultural mind-sets. (Steven Gaydos - Variety).