Heiners Filmseiten – The Boy and the Ball and the Hole in the Wall (en)

The Boy and the Ball and the Hole in the Wall (El niño y el muro)

German title: El niño y el muro (Der Junge und die Mauer)
Russian title: Мальчик и стена
Original title: El niño y el muro

Alternative titles:
El niño, la pelota y el hoyo en el muro

Drama – Spain, Mexico
Production year: 1964
Movie length: 85 minutes

Director: Ismael Rodríguez
Writer: Ismael Rodríguez, Pedro Mario Herrero, Jim Henaghan
Cinematograph: Alfredo Fraile
Music: Adolfo Waitzman

The Boy and the Ball and the Hole in the Wall

Movie description:

Berlin, 1961: A boy of approximately five years of age covets a ball on display at a nearby store. His father one day purchases it for him, but it is soon kicked over the wall of a newly built prison. Determined to regain his possession, our little hero removes a block from the wall and there finds a female peer whose mother works at the facility playing with it. Over a period of a couple days, he tries to coerce the girl into giving it back to him and in the process makes a friend. Trouble starts when the guards learn of the hole.

Dieter is a boy growing up in 1960’s West Berlin. His dad buys him a toy ball that he covets from a local store. While playing with a construction worker, the ball is accidentally kicked over the Berlin Wall into East Germany. At a time when people could get shot for illegally crossing into East Berlin, Dieter makes a hole in the wall and puts himself in danger by making friends with Martha, an East German girl, while trying to recover his toy ball.

Boy Actors