The Sound of Friendship is a documentary film which tells the story of an international  broadcasting station from the German Democratic Republic (GDR)–Radio Berlin International (RBI) and its Indian listening publics. Aired from the Funkhaus at Nalepastrasse in East Berlin from 1967 to 1990, the station's Hindi programme catered to thousands of listeners in rural and semi-urban India. The film recounts the perspectives of East German/Indian presenters, behind microphones, and listeners behind the radio sets. It takes viewers from locales in Berlin to Madhepura, Bihar where we trace the trajectory of one of RBI’s listeners’ clubs from the 1980s called the ‘Lenin Club’.

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How did cross-border friendships develop between listeners in India and journalists in East Germany? How are these connections remembered today, more than 30 years after the station's closure? The film not only brings together the (often) lost pasts of the radio station and its presenters’ biographies, but is also a channel of communication between listeners and radio voices that have never met in person. Shot in India in 2019 and Germany in 2020 and 2021 (in the midst of challenges posed by COVID-19), the documentary revives the mood of the times when radio frequencies weren’t just used for acoustic competition across the Cold War 'Iron Curtain' divide, but also to forge a warmth across two continents. 

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