Film Archive

Land (Film Archive)

Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Filmstill [Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]
[Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]
Klaus Wilhelm
A Soviet armoured regiment in Saxony welcomes a distinguished visitor: The Minister President arrives on Christmas Eve 1991 and meets young soldiers whose future is uncertain.
Filmstill [Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]

[Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet tank regiment]

[Kurt Biedenkopf besucht ein sowjetisches Panzerregiment]
Klaus Wilhelm
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
Germany
1991
8 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The Russian tricolour is already blowing in the background as Saxony’s Minister President Prof. Dr. Kurt Biedenkopf visits a Soviet armoured regiment on Christmas Eve 1991. Those were truly turbulent times – a few months before, tanks had been rolling across Moscow’s Red Square during the August Coup; only days later, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Klaus Wilhelm
Cinematographer
Ch. Stolle
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 2023
Filmstill Doroga Zhizni – Road of Life
Doroga Zhizni – Road of Life
M. Markosov
Today, numerous memorials in Saint Petersburg commemorate the almost 900-day Siege of Leningrad. The “road of life” plays a special role in collective memory.
Filmstill Doroga Zhizni – Road of Life

Doroga Zhizni – Road of Life

Doroga Zhizni – Straße des Lebens
M. Markosov
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
USSR
1965
12 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Everyday life in casual street scenes in the Leningrad spring in the 1960s. A taxi driver suddenly remembers his transport missions on the so-called “road of life” during the German Wehrmacht’s 900-day blockade in World War Two. Iconographic images from the time of the Siege of Leningrad offer insights into how the people lived then.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
M. Markosov
Sound
Yu. Osipov
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 2023
Filmstill Paskutinis
Paskutinis
Vladislovas Algimantas Blinstrubas
In the Lithuanian SSR, a film artist looks back on centuries of Baltic history from a different perspective, opening up a space for pain and grief.
Filmstill Paskutinis

Paskutinis

Paskutinis
Vladislovas Algimantas Blinstrubas
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Fictional Film
USSR
1970
9 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

SOS – help! A clear and simple visual language to disturbing sounds. The distinguished Lithuanian film and theatre director Vladislovas Algimantas Blinstrubas condenses the violent, centuries-long history of the Baltic in timeless metaphors. The naked, vulnerable human being is at the centre of this filmic exploration. The space opens up to pain and grief.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Vladislovas Algimantas Blinstrubas
Script
Vladislovas Algimantas Blinstrubas
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 2023
Filmstill SSSR. 50 Let – 50 Years USSR [fragment]
SSSR. 50 Let – 50 Years USSR [fragment]
anonymous
“Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country,” Lenin said. The biggest country on earth, presented in stupendous images intended to awe and amaze.
Filmstill SSSR. 50 Let – 50 Years USSR [fragment]

SSSR. 50 Let – 50 Years USSR [fragment]

SSSR. 50 Let – 50 Jahre UdSSR [Fragment]
anonymous
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
USSR
1972
10 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Saint Petersburg as the cradle of the 1917 October Revolution, Moscow as the birthplace of the Soviet Union in 1922: According to Lenin’s dictum “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country,” the mastery of the forces of nature and the exploitation of natural resources are demonstrated in impressive images – emphasising the independence and fraternity of all Soviet Republics.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
anonymous
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Filmstill Stranicy Moego Kinoalboma – Pages of My Film Album
Stranicy Moego Kinoalboma – Pages of My Film Album
V. Shendrik, V. Vajda, F. Krevnev
The big political guidelines – the “two camps” doctrine, historical duty, military alliance treaty obligations – emerge from the cine film collection of a Soviet citizen in Riga.
Filmstill Stranicy Moego Kinoalboma – Pages of My Film Album

Stranicy Moego Kinoalboma – Pages of My Film Album

Stranicy Moego Kinoalboma – Seiten meines Filmalbums
V. Shendrik, V. Vajda, F. Krevnev
Matinee Saxon State Archive 2023
Documentary Film
USSR
1969
9 minutes
German Voiceover
Subtitles: 
None

Watching his collection of cine films, a Soviet citizen and cineaste in Latvian Riga remembers his time as a soldier in the GDR. At the time, mutual military support within the Warsaw Pact guaranteed the defensive capabilities against attempted attacks from the imperialist west – always taking into account the lessons learned in World War Two.

Konstantin Wiesinger

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
V. Shendrik, V. Vajda, F. Krevnev
Producer
Amateurfilmkollektiv Riga