Joy Division

Joy Division is a 2006 British-German-Hungarian film directed by Reg Traviss. The story is a fictional biopic which follows the life of a boy in Germany at the end of World War II into his adulthood in Russia and London during the Cold War. The script was written by Reg Traviss and Rosemary Mason and went into production in 2004 after completion of Traviss' short film JD Pilot in 2003, based upon the same script and which also starred Ed Stoppard in the role of adult Thomas. Joy Division was shown for the film industry at the Cannes Film Festival European Film Market and at the American Film Market in 2005. It was invited to screen at the Copenhagen International Film Festival in 2006 and was released theatrically in the United Kingdom in November 2006. Plot Thomas (Ed Stoppard), a young German, fights unsuccessfully as one of Nazi Germany's Joy Division youth troops after the Soviet Union invades. In the early 1960s, he loses faith in the ideals he was brought up with, and works as a spy and assassin for the Russians during the Cold War. His story is mostly revealed in flashbacks. Tom Schilling plays the younger Thomas, who sees his native Germany destroyed by the Soviet invaders. His family is killed, leaving him orphaned, and with only his girlfriend Melanie (Bernadette Heerwagen) left. His girlfriend Melanie is repeatedly raped by Red Army soldiers and she is eventually killed by a Soviet soldier after having sex with him and two other Soviet soldiers in order to protect Thomas from being beaten and killed by the soldiers.