Film Archive

Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
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… Do Not Forget Us! [excerpt]
Michael Wünsch, Christine Beer
At the district level, the SED’s legitimization and claim to moral leadership are brought into a line of tradition with the illegal KPD resistance in the Weimar Republic.
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… Do Not Forget Us! [excerpt]

… vergeßt uns nicht! [Ausschnitt]
Michael Wünsch, Christine Beer
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1984
15 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

A film is ceremonially screened on the 40th anniversary of the murder of the resistance group around KPD (Communist Party of Germany) functionary Georg Schuman. Present is Horst Schumann, son of the resistance fighter and 1st Secretary of the SED Leipzig District Authority. The filmed document and the documented screening become propaganda accomplices: The GDR present perpetuates the history of NS resistance.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Michael Wünsch, Christine Beer
Script
Michael Wünsch, Christine Beer
Cinematographer
Maro Nagel, Thomas Huschlo, Bert Gahrmann, Thomas Voßbeck, Janek Ziegler, Hagen Reckziegel, Rainhardt Mißbach, Thomas Böttger
Editor
Christine Beer, Gabi Blumentritt
Producer
Filmstudio am Haus der Jungen Pioniere "Georg Schwarz", Leipzig
Sound
Thilo Kersten, Benedikt Rösel, Janek Ziegler
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill [An Interview with Ingeborg Tölke]
[An Interview with Ingeborg Tölke]
The self-taught nature filmmaker Ingeborg Tölke inspired broad audiences with her technical skills and her lifelong connection to flora and fauna.
Filmstill [An Interview with Ingeborg Tölke]

[An Interview with Ingeborg Tölke]

[Interview mit Ingeborg Tölke]
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1963
7 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Ingeborg Tölke recaps her filmic biography, explains its elaborate technical conditions and talks about future core themes. She was presumably responsible for several short intermission films for Deutscher Fernsehfunk as well as a commissioned educational film. Until old age, she explored the possibilities of macro shots and time-lapse technology, which became her trademark.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF)
Genius Loci 2020
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[Leipzig, Station Forecourt]
Stadtkabinett für Kulturarbeit Leipzig
The hectic atmosphere on the station forecourt hasn’t changed in all those years. Even in 1988, this inhospitable place was crossed at the quickest possible pace.
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[Leipzig, Station Forecourt]

[Leipzig, Bahnhofsvorplatz]
Stadtkabinett für Kulturarbeit Leipzig
Genius Loci 2020
Documentary Film
GDR
1988
3 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Romantic train rides? Rapid cuts and pans show the profane, hectic everyday life of a big city that has no time for romance. The “last mile” to the place of actual departure is covered at a quick pace – by taxi, streetcar or bus. Serious, tired or withdrawn faces hurry to leave the inhospitable station forecourt behind.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Stadtkabinett für Kulturarbeit Leipzig
Producer
Stadtkabinett für Kulturarbeit Leipzig
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Ablinga
Ablinga
Dagnija Osite-Krüger
A Lithuanian village destroyed by the Wehrmacht is reborn as a forest of sculptures. This film poem commemorates the murdered ones and calls for peace.
Filmstill Ablinga

Ablinga

Ablinga
Dagnija Osite-Krüger
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1977
13 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Nothing is left of the Lithuanian village of Ablinga. Destroyed by Wehrmacht soldiers in 1941, a forest of sculptures was erected in 1972 to commemorate those who once lived here. Larger than life, the carved wooden monuments rise to the sky. In national poet Justinas Marcinkevičius’s poem they wake up again, share some last secrets and become connecting links on a timeline that knows violence and dreams of peace. Dagnija Osite-Krüger’s montage is bold, playful and sometimes brutal, her concern credible and strong. Within a few minutes, “Ablinga” puts a spell on us, becoming a monument to German guilt and the memory of the murdered ones.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Dagnija Osite-Krüger
Script
Dagnija Osite-Krüger
Cinematographer
Leonid Krainenkow
Editor
Werner Wendt
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme
Sound Design
Peter Gotthardt
Retrospective 2021
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Operation J
Walter Heynowski
A polemical biographical research of Adenauer’s Chief of Staff of the Chancellery Globke: Nazi administrative lawyer, Eichmann confidant, accomplice to the racist declassification of Jews.
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Operation J

Aktion J
Walter Heynowski
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1961
103 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Heynowski’s biographical research in the guise of an exposé film was part of a campaign coordinated by SED functionary Albert Norden to unmask the FRG as a fascist state. Documents and commentaries trace the career of Adenauer’s Chief of Staff of the Chancellery, Hans Globke, who had collaborated in the systematic marking and racist declassification of Jews as a Nazi administrative lawyer and Eichmann confidant. The facts had been on the table for some time, but acquired new propaganda value in view of the impending Eichmann trial. In 1961, “Operation J” was awarded a main prize at the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Walter Heynowski
Script
Walter Heynowski
Cinematographer
Rolf Sperling
Editor
Bert Schultz
Producer
Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF)
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
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When the Anemones Bloomed
Kollektiv
A restrained and thoughtful look at the “Below Forest Death March” which leaves room for nuances: Concentration camp inmates leave carvings on the trees. The testimonies “grow over”.
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When the Anemones Bloomed

Als die Anemonen blühten
Kollektiv
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1983
7 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

A formally sophisticated and thoughtful film about the “Below Forest Death March” memorial site: In the late spring of 1945, this wooded area near Wittstock became an improvised temporary camp for inmates of the Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps. They eternalized themselves and their fate by carving on the trees. But what does “eternal” mean? The trees grow, change and renew their skin …

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Kollektiv
Producer
Cine-Pentama-Studio "Hans Beimler" VEB Kombinat Lokomotivbau-Elektrotechnische-Werke Hennigsdorf
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Filmstill Encounters
Encounters
Alfred Dorn
Lenin’s long shadow reaches until 1970: The citizens of the Soviet Union pay their respects to Lenin, the founder of their state – at the mausoleum on Moscow’s Red Square.
Filmstill Encounters

Encounters

Begegnungen
Alfred Dorn
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
GDR
1970
15 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

A quote by the Soviet futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky about Lenin frames the plot of this film: A dead man who is “more alive than the living” today. On a tour through the Union of Soviet Republics, the film team meet friends “in the full sense of the word” without mentioning their names: encounters with people in the Soviet Union in 1970.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Alfred Dorn
Producer
Filmkollektiv des VEB Chemiekombinat Bitterfeld
Retrospective 2021
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Berlin-Totale XIV. 2. d) Almstadtstraße
Karl-Heinz Wegner
A production of the State Film Documentation, which was set up to preserve uncensored GDR reality: Long-term residents look back on the German-Jewish history of “their” street.
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Berlin-Totale XIV. 2. d) Almstadtstraße

Berlin-Totale XIV. 2. d) Almstadtstraße
Karl-Heinz Wegner
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1979
35 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Why this film document about a street in East Berlin is the way it is, why it conveys an almost touching, basically unformed honesty and perplexity, is due to the specific institution it was made for. The State Film Documentation was founded to provide the GDR with uncensored testimonies of its own reality. Three long-time residents look, through notoriously draughty windows, at the notoriously chilly German-Jewish history: Herr Miegel, former pub owner, Frau Kramp, former cinema employee, Mischket Liebermann, writer and GDR cultural politician. They have been neighbours in their district forever. They will probably remain strangers to each other forever.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Karl-Heinz Wegner
Cinematographer
Roland Worel, Dieter Schönberg
Sound
Dieter Harms
Commissioning Editor
Veronika Otten
Retrospective 2021
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Buchenwald
Günter Weschke
The Buchenwald Memorial was the first national memorial of the GDR. From 1961 to 1975, every memorial tour began with this introductory film, in which the Jewish victims are barely mentioned.
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Buchenwald

Buchenwald
Günter Weschke
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1961
26 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The inauguration of the “National Buchenwald Memorial”, the first national memorial of the GDR, took place in 1958. The monumental site was also meant to demonstrate the state-supporting importance of a selective culture of remembrance, commemorating the communist resistance fighters – and omitting the fact that the graves were mainly filled with Jewish victims. In 1961, DEFA completed this “introductory film”, commissioned by the Buchenwald committee, which talks about Goethe, Schiller, Thälmann, but only very marginally about Jews. Every visitor’s memorial tour started with this until 1975. Its scriptwriter and production manager was the playwright Heiner Müller, a fact that was not known until 2004.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Günter Weschke
Script
Günter Weschke, Heiner Müller
Cinematographer
Günter Weschke
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Wochenschau und Dokumentarfilme
Sound
Heinz Reusch, Kurt Wolfram
Narrator
Sergio Günther, Ekkehard Schall, Wolfgang Heinz
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
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The Memorial
K. Kayser, B. Schmidt, K. Coccejus
Conveyed by innovative music and original sound bites, a disturbing dialogue between a memorial to National Socialist crimes and its viewers evolves.
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The Memorial

Das Mahnmal
K. Kayser, B. Schmidt, K. Coccejus
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1975
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

An innovative approach to the subject of National Socialism which uses a composition by Georg Katzer, a GDR pioneer of Neue Musik. The sound level – acoustic distortions and sound bites by leading representatives of the Third Reich – dominates, juxtaposed with minimalist images. A dialogue between viewers and memorial evolves in shots and counter shots.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
K. Kayser, B. Schmidt, K. Coccejus
Producer
Amateurfilmstudio Fernsehsender Schwerin
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill The First Birthday
The First Birthday
Gabriele Hochneder
Silvia, single mother, celebrates her daughter’s first birthday. A matter-of-fact and occasionally sobering portrait that revolves around a sanguine woman.
Filmstill The First Birthday

The First Birthday

Der erste Geburtstag
Gabriele Hochneder
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1978
17 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Silvia Szuprizinski has lived alone with her little daughter for a year now: time to take stock. The young woman talks, her stories commented by Gabriele Hochneder’s pictures of everyday life that tell of efforts. Silvia, leaning against the tiled stove, talks about the failed relationship with the child’s father with detachment, but also with a certain degree of regret. At least her own family are present, all of them at the door in time for the first birthday. Still, Silvia spends her nights alone with herself – and the television. The fact that Hochneder’s film, despite the adversities, does not become a lament is at least partly owing to its sanguine main protagonist.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Gabriele Hochneder
Cinematographer
Jürgen Lubosch
Editor
Ilona Thiel
Producer
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Dialogue
Dialogue
Róża Berger-Fiedler
A young officer opens the doors to the National People’s Army and to his close family. While his life is full of variety, others must play second fiddle.
Filmstill Dialogue

Dialogue

Dialog
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1978
27 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

“Won’t make it today, hope you don’t mind.” A casual call, the husband will be late again, not to be expected before eight. He is an officer in the National People’s Army, still young, but with a lot of postings under his belt, always accompanied by his wife. She has resigned herself to her fate, while he flourishes enviably in his profession. Róża Berger-Fiedler spends most of the time by his side, following him in brisk cuts from appointment to appointment. Talking is required and demanded constantly: to representatives of the Soviet armed forces, young recruits, subordinates. Words come easy to him, but not everything runs smoothly.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Script
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Cinematographer
Hans-Eberhard Leupold
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme
Score
Peter Gotthardt
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Kollwitz and Her Children
Kollwitz and Her Children
Christa Mühl
What to think of children playing on the Kollwitz sculpture? An exchange of letters with its sculptor inspired Christa Mühl to a shrewd and subtle miniature.
Filmstill Kollwitz and Her Children

Kollwitz and Her Children

Die Kollwitz und ihre Kinder
Christa Mühl
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1971
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Kollwitzplatz, Prenzlauer Berg: Children are playing and climbing all over the monument to Käthe Kollwitz, frowning adults are watching them. What would Gustav Seitz, the creator of the sculpture, say? Christa Mühl has asked him but reveals his answer only when the adults have finally disappeared. Until then, she constructs explosive matter as light as a feather, set to Belgian cembalo jazz and with the perky montage style that characterises her early documentary work. After Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler himself had the most controversial scene cut, the film could be broadcast on television and triggered a lively discussion about the practical value of art.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Christa Mühl
Script
Werner Hecht, Christa Mühl
Cinematographer
Christiane Kunow
Editor
Karin Döring
Producer
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR
Sound
Wolfgang Hasse
Genius Loci 2020
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The Last Ride
Filmstudio Kulturhaus der Eisenbahner Leipzig
The tone is sober, but the occasion inspires nostalgia: the last ride of an express steam train from Leipzig Central Station on 30 September 1978.
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The Last Ride

Die letzte Fahrt
Filmstudio Kulturhaus der Eisenbahner Leipzig
Genius Loci 2020
Documentary Film
GDR
1978
3 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Pointedly sober and factual, the speaker explains the necessary preparations for the last departure of an express steam train headed for Berlin from Leipzig Central Station on 30 September 1978. Numerous amateur filmmakers and photographers accompany the steam engine as it departs on its final mission. Unlike the speaker, they were probably quite moved.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Filmstudio Kulturhaus der Eisenbahner Leipzig
Producer
Filmstudio Kulturhaus der Eisenbahner Leipzig
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill Ballad of the Matches
Ballad of the Matches
Johannes Hempel
Matches are out in the GDR! The workers threaten to go to the barricades. A harmless puppet animation? The satire was made just after the uprising of 17 June 1953.
Filmstill Ballad of the Matches

Ballad of the Matches

Die Streichholzballade
Johannes Hempel
Retrospective 2023
Animated Film
GDR
1953
16 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The people, among them an astonishing number of workers, react with visible anger to the sudden lack of matches – and threaten to go to the barricades. The problem is solved, of course. But does it mean the population’s anger is placated? Puppet animation director Johannes Hempel created this satire based on a draft by Wolfgang Kohlhaase – at the same time as the uprising of 17 June 1953.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Johannes Hempel
Script
Wolfgang Kohlhase, Johannes Hempel
Cinematographer
Rolf Sperling
Editor
Manfred Porsche
Producer
DEFA-Studio für populärwissenschaftliche Filme
Score
H. W. Wiemann
Animation
Johannes Hempel, Herbert K. Schulz, Rosemarie Küssner
Retrospective 2021
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The Stormers
Dagobert Loewenberg, Peter Voigt
An outraged film pamphlet takes the West German coverage of the Six-Day War as an occasion to launch a sweeping verbal blow against the Bonn Republic.
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The Stormers

Die Stürmer
Dagobert Loewenberg, Peter Voigt
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1967
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

“If you want to storm, you use stormer methods”, to quote a direct reference to the infamous anti-Semitic smear sheet of the Nazi era. Set to shrill trumpet sounds, this outraged film pamphlet dissects, or so it seems, the drastic jargon of the “West German monopoly press”, especially the publications of the Springer publishing house, in their coverage of the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. At the same time, it uses the reviled style for its own argumentation. Under the auspices of the DEFA newsreel editors of “Der Augenzeuge” (The Eyewitness), a sweeping blow against the Bonn Republic arises from news images and superimposed newspaper articles.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Dagobert Loewenberg, Peter Voigt
Script
Dagobert Loewenberg
Cinematographer
Dieter Frycia
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme
Score
Kurt Zander