A creative documentary and high-politics drama about the collapse of the Iron Curtain. A young technocrat, Miklós Németh, becomes Hungary's new prime minister to save the country's appalling economy. He then decides to remove the expensive border control apparatus from the state budget. A young couple from East Germany is encouraged by the rumors that the Hungarian border to Austria will be opened and decide to go for it. But Németh's decision has set him up against formidable adversaries and communist hardliners. The couple is caught up in the political power-game, and the young man is shot dead at the border. This tragic event accelerates Németh's final decision to open the borders, but soon the Berlin wall falls. 1989 recreates the events and invites the audience into secret meeting rooms through a mixture of testimonials, archival material, and reconstructed dialogues, lip-synched to the footage of the key political characters.