Stromheart

A Caucasian Shepherd, Stormheart is born in the autumn of 1989 at the Red Star Kennel of the DDR Army. The puppy is destined to grow up to serve the merciless East German Border Guards, but fate decides otherwise. The DDR collapses after an unarmed Candle Revolution and the reunification of Germany begins.

East Germany has to get rid of its 7,000 wall-guarding dogs. Most of the full-grown dogs are put down. Puppies are given away for free or sold dirt-cheap – for example, to a musician and a father from Hämeenlinna in southern Finland, whose business trip to Berlin is interrupted by the wonder of the bloodless revolution.

The man first encounters Stormheart at an East Berlin marketplace. The huge puppy is sitting in a box with some baby chicks. The puppy’s days are numbered. No one in Germany wants to burden himself with the offspring of the dreaded guard dogs of the Wall. The father, touched by the events of Germany, feels that the puppy is a true messenger of peace. He decides to save the puppy.

The father names the puppy Stormheart and brings him back home as a pet for the family. The mother and the two daughters, Minty, 13, and Pearl, 7, wonder about the strange-looking fur ball. The father doesn’t know the puppy’s breed. All he knows is that his sisters and parents have been put down and the same would have happened to Stormheart, had he not rescued him.

7-year-old Pearl takes the puppy under her wing, comforting Stormheart, the poor little orphan. His mum and dad are not really dead, they have just turned into stars in the sky. Pearl grabs Stormheart’s paw and waves at the star-lit sky, whispering: ”Good night Granny, good night Chippy the hamster, good night Stormhearts’s mum and dad. Good night all dead animals of the world.”

To Stormheart’s parents, Pearl writes a consoling letter. They need not be worried anymore, for Stormheart has a new mum now, Pearl.

Pearl’s father finds her letter and answers it in secret, in the name of Stormheart’s mother and father. To her surprise, Pearl finds on her bedside table a letter from ”Daria and Daniel” who are happy that Stormheart has a good home. Pearl begins an intense correspondence with Daria and Daniel with the latest news about their son, Stormheart.

In the care of the tender-hearted family, trained only by little Pearl, Stormheart grows up with no rules or boundaries. The cute little fur ball swells into a tank-like bundle of muscles and, quite unnoticed, his huge arsenal of instincts bursts into full bloom. As the year passes, the clumsy little baby dog develops into a fighting machine equipped with the sense of duty of a guardian angel.

No fence, rope or chain can hold down the strong and sturdy dog as he starts looking after the Berryston family – and little Pearl in particular – to the best of his abilities. Stormheart is ready to fight and even to die for his closest ones, whether he be faced with Minty’s boyfriend, the school principal, the chairman of the residents’ association, a bear, the police or an entire armoured brigade.

The fence around the Berryston house rises higher and higher, at the same pace as the Berlin Wall crumbles to the ground. And on the day of the reunification of Germany, a TV documentary finally reveals to the Berryston family what kind of dog Stormheart really is. It was the duty of Stormheart’s parents and 7,000 other Caucasian Shepherds to stop any defectors trying to cross the Wall – at any cost.

Pearl refuses to believe that the documentary is true, since TV is mostly about acting. Against the strict orders of her mother, Pearl takes Stormheart and flees into town, where Stormheart soon spreads terror. A police patrol and an ambulance are called out, and the chaos gets even worse as the well-trained police dogs run away from Stormheart. The police decide to put Stormheart down.

Shocked by what has happened, the adolescent Minty becomes furious about the irresponsible treatment of animals, blaming her mother and father, the police and the whole of mankind. As the night comes, she secretly sets Stormheart free, so that he can find himself a better home.

Stormheart wanders into the small-town night. He watches a mouse rustling in the bushes. He runs at full speed after a rabbit in the park. He finally ends up drinking water at a small pond in the forest, where swans are sleeping with their heads under their wings.

In the morning, Pearl sets off for a desperate search for her wild friend set free. She runs across the town and into a forest, where, to her surprise, she encounters a bear that has strayed near human habitation. At that very moment, Stormheart storms in and chases the bear away.

Pearl writes to Daria and Daniel, saying that she can no longer take care of Stormheart: ”Your son loves me so much that he’s ready to die for me, and I don’t want Stormheart to dieÓ. With her father, Pearl puts an ad in the newspaper: ”Free Caucasian Shepherd to good home”.

In 1990, there are no Caucasian Shepherds in Finland. None of those interested in having Stormheart as their pet know anything about the breed – except for old Arda who was born in the country of Georgia and lives with her daughter’s family at a small farm in the wilderness of Northern Finland.

Stormheart is taken up to the North. When Arda sees Stormheart, she remembers her childhood in the Caucasus mountains. Stormheart is like her old dog Zara that the Red Army took to Moscow in the 1940’s for breeding purposes.

When Arda speaks Russian to Stormheart, he pads up to her as if understanding the language of his ancestors. Pearl feels that Stormheart has finally come home, to his mother Daria and his father Daniel.

In their letter, Daria and Daniel console Pearl who has lost her best friend. They hope that despite everything, Pearl will continue her correspondence with them, for dogs remain forever faithful to their friends. And unfortunately also to those who abuse their trust. A dog never bites the hand that feeds him.