Film Archive

Land (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)
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
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
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Filmstill Three Decades Later
Three Decades Later
Volker Kastius
A visit to Volgograd exemplifies the GDR’s handling of the Nazi past: Germans are declared victims and resistance fighters against the Nazi regime.
Filmstill Three Decades Later

Three Decades Later

Drei Jahrzehnte später
Volker Kastius
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
GDR
1977
15 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

A representative of the Volgograd Section of the German-Soviet Friendship Society recalls German “comrades who fought against Hitler here […] and at other front sectors.” Equalisation with the people in the Soviet Union is completed at the Mamayev Kurgan memorial: The (German) visitors merge with the survivors who mourn their fallen.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Volker Kastius
Cinematographer
Willy Reitze
Producer
Amateurfilmstudio VEB Elektromotorenwerk Wernigerode
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
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The Grass Does Not Grow Over Everything
F. Faust
A narrator explains surviving evidence of the events on the grounds of the Langenstein-Zwieberge subcamp. The film ends with a formulaic ritual of remembrance.
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The Grass Does Not Grow Over Everything

Es wächst das Gras nicht über alles
F. Faust
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1985
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

A male voice, accompanied by the eponymous instrumental piece by Reinhard Lakomy, comments on photographic and material evidence of the events on the grounds of the Langenstein-Zwieberge subcamp. The audiovisual tour concludes with a visit by an FDJ (Free German Youth) group who lay down wreaths at the memorial site built in 1949. The speaker unequivocally classes this ritual of remembrance as part of the raison d’état.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
F. Faust
Script
A. Faust
Cinematographer
R. Muschke
Editor
F. Faust
Producer
Technische Hochschule Magdeburg, Bezirkskabinett für Kulturarbeit Magdeburg
Narrator
J. Reinhardt
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Familie Butter
The Butter Family
An entertaining vision for International Women’s Day as an admonition, inspiration and commentary about gender relations in GDR everyday life, in the form of a puppet animation.
Filmstill Familie Butter

The Butter Family

Familie Butter
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1967
6 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The married couple Angelika and Horst Butter sum up successes and setbacks of their joint amateur filmmaking. They now produce elaborate puppet animations in their private rooms, under sometimes adverse conditions. They adapt fairy tale and fantasy sources, but also take up topical social issues, for example in an entertaining vision for International Women’s Day.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF)
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Frauen unserer Zeit
Women of Our Time
Hanna Emuth
According to the film’s voice-over, it is the duty of a factory’s women’s committee to “exert a constant influence on systematic ideological-political and technical qualification”.
Filmstill Frauen unserer Zeit

Women of Our Time

Frauen unserer Zeit
Hanna Emuth
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1969
15 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The women’s committees in the GDR factories promote the technical and ideological-political qualification of female staff members. However, the film identifies deficits in the women’s private environment, since the men by their side often support their professional development only to a limited extent and the women’s multiple responsibilities persist despite state support.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Hanna Emuth
Script
Günther Mehnert
Cinematographer
Wolfgang Niestradt
Editor
Hanna Kubin
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Kurzfilme
Score
Peter Gotthardt
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Hilfe, ich bin eine Frau
Help, I’m a Woman!
Edith Schneider, Joachim Schneider
Mother, working woman, housewife and wife all in one: A tightly scheduled everyday life seems to leave next to no space for developing one’s personality beyond these roles.
Filmstill Hilfe, ich bin eine Frau

Help, I’m a Woman!

Hilfe, ich bin eine Frau!
Edith Schneider, Joachim Schneider
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Fictional Film
GDR
1981
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

A creative and skilful montage as well as dramatically spot-on sound and music effects are combined in a snappy plot to offer a mordant commentary on the constitutionally enshrined equality of men and women in the GDR. The film was awarded a medal at the 1982 congress of UNICA, the Union Internationale du Cinéma, in Aachen.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Edith Schneider, Joachim Schneider
Producer
Betriebsfilmstudio Filmstudio VEB Bohrungen und Schachtbau Welzow
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Lebendes Moor
Living Moor
Ingeborg Tölke
Technically elaborate and sensitively composed, the self-taught nature filmmaker Ingeborg Tölke unlocks fantastic and cruel aspects of the natural landscape of a moor.
Filmstill Lebendes Moor

Living Moor

Lebendes Moor
Ingeborg Tölke
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1962
11 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The self-taught nature filmmaker Ingeborg Tölke uses quotes from literary encounters with the flora and fauna of the moor in a gentle approach to this landscape. With great empathy, she uncovers the often all-too-hastily overlooked beauties and cruelties of the place, using time-lapse and macro techniques. Her debut work, which was also amazing in terms of film craft, won several awards.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Ingeborg Tölke
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
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People You Never Forget
H. von Oettingen, H. Hütte
Invoking the revolutionary heritage of the German Peasants’ Wars of the 16th century, the SED reshapes society with the support of the Soviet Union.
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People You Never Forget

Menschen, die man nie vergißt
H. von Oettingen, H. Hütte
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1970
21 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

What was unsuccessful 400 years earlier in the German Peasants’ Wars is achieved in 1945 by the unbreakable bond with the Soviet Union: Under adverse conditions, workers and peasants build a socialist state. In 1970, when this film was made, the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) asserts its claim to leadership grounded in the past – it moves forward on the “Way from the I to the We”.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
H. von Oettingen, H. Hütte
Script
H. von Oettingen, H. Hütte
Cinematographer
S. Zebisch, M. Seidel
Editor
D. Körner
Producer
agra-Filmstudio
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Filmstill Restitution of the Art Treasures to the Green Vault
Restitution of the Art Treasures to the Green Vault
anonymous
After the defeat of the Nazi regime, the Soviet occupiers – later friends – were anxious to establish good relationships: They returned “evacuated” art treasures amidst great media attention.
Filmstill Restitution of the Art Treasures to the Green Vault

Restitution of the Art Treasures to the Green Vault

Rückgabe der Kunstschätze an das Grüne Gewölbe
anonymous
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
GDR
1958
5 minutes
without dialogue

Opening the film is a highly visible Soviet coat of arms with translations of Marx’s call “Workers of the world, unite!” into several languages. In the middle of a media circus, representatives of the Soviet Union restituted art treasures to the GDR. The highlight was the return of “evacuated” objects to the Green Vault in Dresden.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
anonymous
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Tagebuch eines Schmalfilmers
Diary of a Narrow-Gauge Filmmaker
The experienced amateur filmmaker Liselotte Schließer looks back on her career and wonders at the low number of female directors and camera people.
Filmstill Tagebuch eines Schmalfilmers

Diary of a Narrow-Gauge Filmmaker

Tagebuch eines Schmalfilmers
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1975
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Accompanying Liselotte Schließer, who worked full time as a technical draughtswoman, in her private and professional daily life. She talks about the passion that became her second mission in life. The only woman in organised amateur filmmaking for many years and now head of the amateur filmmakers’ association of Radebeul, she still misses female directors and camera people.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Producer
Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF)
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Wir und unsere Umwelt
We and Our Environment
Hanna Emuth
Environmental protection was firmly anchored in the legislation of the industrial state of the GDR. The tension between exploitation and preservation of nature, however, seemed unresolvable.
Filmstill Wir und unsere Umwelt

We and Our Environment

Wir und unsere Umwelt
Hanna Emuth
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1971
27 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

On the occasion of the GDR Landeskulturgesetz (Law on the Conservation and Protection of the Environment), passed in 1970, the speaker explains the various aspects of environmental protection through vivid, visually pointed examples. The film repeatedly refers to the fundamental contradiction between exploitation and preservation of nature in a developed industrial state but is unable to resolve it.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Hanna Emuth
Script
Jürgen Hartmann, Herbert Mosch
Cinematographer
Manfred Heim
Editor
Monika Schäfer
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Kurzfilme
Score
Wolfgang Pietsch
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2022
Filmstill Wirbel um Arkadi
Turmoil Around Arkady
Liselotte Schließer
A Soviet dance instructor is expected to ensure the authenticity of the choreography of a children’s and youth dance ensemble’s Eastern European and Central Asian folk dances.
Filmstill Wirbel um Arkadi

Turmoil Around Arkady

Wirbel um Arkadi
Liselotte Schließer
Matinee Sächsisches Staatsarchiv 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1967
11 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

With no introduction, the audience find themselves in the middle of the film’s subject. Soviet ballet master Arkady Sakharov instructs the children’s and youth dance ensemble of the Radebeul district’s arts centre with an insistent voice. Belarussian, Ukrainian, Uzbek and Russian folk dances are rehearsed under his strict guidance and performed at the packed local arts centre.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Liselotte Schließer
Cinematographer
Liselotte Schließer