Designed as a travelogue about Israel, Herbert Viktor emphasizes similarities to the FRG of the economic miracle years in his film: clean, neat, busy, enterprising. Haifa, for example, is described as having evolved from a “meeting place for Arabic caravans and robber bands” to the most modern port of the Levant. Viktor also pays tribute to the welcoming culture for the persecuted of the world, but omits to elucidate on the fates that lie behind them. The film, spiced up by staged intermezzi to become a statement of sympathy, was released in Federal German cinemas in 1959 under the patronage of Willy Brandt. It was not allowed on Israeli screens before 1962, when the death sentence against Adolf Eichmann had been upheld by the court of appeal.

The beaches of Havana, splashing around, tender gestures between lovers, the sun glistening on the water, hips swaying to music. With this light-handed etude, Néstor Almendros delivers a shimmering testimony of post-revolutionary relaxation – and an early proof of his virtuosity as a cinematographer.
The film was made at ICAIC – and disappeared there, too. The national film art institute founded in 1959 by order of the new government saw no place for such neorealistic extravaganzas in the new Cuban cinema and issued a screening ban. Néstor Almendros left Cuba in 1961 to become a world-renowned cinematographer in the US and Europe. His name was expunged from the ICAIC filmography published in the book accompanying the 1974 Cuban retrospective in Leipzig.

Petra looks back on an eventful day: Together with other kids she went on a paperchase, solved a few small tasks and coordinated with her assigned partner. There were some adventures, but also a classroom situation set up in a meadow where one’s knowledge of the local flora was tested. In the end, they all boarded sailing boats and glided off into an atmospheric evening. A protocol in letters, accurately drawn up at the Potsdam Pioneer House, serves as the framework for one of the first completed films of the newly founded German Academy of Film Art in Babelsberg.