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Filmstill The Bridge of Caputh

The Bridge of Caputh

Die Brücke von Caputh
Eva Fritzsche
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
Germany (Soviet Occupation Zone)
1949
15 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Workers reconstruct a railway bridge and Eva Fritzsche reconstructs the process behind it – by re-enacting what she couldn’t film, supported by the participants, who re-play themselves. The film sings the praises especially of those whose commitment was held in low esteem: young people who even give up playing football, and women who suddenly find themselves working in the factory. “Women as blacksmiths, what a joke!” a job centre employee sneers. This echoes what Eva Fritzsche herself had to listen to at DEFA: “Women don’t make films!” Yes, she did – and created one of the most impressive testimonies of the years of reconstruction.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Eva Fritzsche
Script
Eva Fritzsche
Cinematographer
Arndt von Rautenfeld, Götz Neumann
Editor
Anneliese Schlüter
Producer
DEFA-Studio für populärwissenschaftliche Filme
Score
Eberhard Schmidt, Fritz Steinmann
Retrospective 2021
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The Jewish Lane
Peter Nestler
Remains of a medieval Jewish ghetto were discovered in Frankfurt am Main. Nationwide protests against “building over” them were the occasion of this preservation of the findings on film.
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The Jewish Lane

Die Judengasse
Peter Nestler
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
FRG
1988
44 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
English

Archaeological evidence of medieval Jewish life had barely been discovered during excavation works in Frankfurt am Main when it was to be “built over” again. The civil protest in 1987 spread to the whole of the Federal Republic – and called Peter Nestler to the scene. His film undertakes what the Frankfurt authorities wanted to avoid: a thorough securing and contextualization of the findings. He not “only” places the discovered remains of the Jewish ghetto in the context of urban and German history, but also lays bare the contemporary Federal German insensitivity regarding cultural history and commemorative politics, displaying it as if in a museum cabinet.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Peter Nestler
Script
Peter Nestler
Cinematographer
Rainer Komers
Editor
Peter Nestler
Producer
Südwestfunk (SWF)
Sound
Peter Nestler
Narrator
Peter Nestler
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
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
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill Downhill
Downhill
Marian Cholerek
A buoyant revolutionary fantasy that hides its subversive potential behind funny figures and upbeat music in 1979 Poland. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Filmstill Downhill

Downhill

Z górki
Marian Cholerek
Retrospective 2023
Animated Film
Poland
1979
6 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Everything goes downhill. For whom? Marian Cholerek leaves that to the audience. After all, there was no way he could tell his story about a joint action of alleged oppositional forces in 1979 unequivocally. His years of work on animated series for children and his penchant for erotically charged humour, however, are unmistakeable. A cheerfully subversive children’s film for adults.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Marian Cholerek
Cinematographer
Henryk Pollak
Editor
Alojzy Mol
Producer
Studio Filmów Rysunkowych
Sound
Zbigniew Jurczyk
Score
Antoni Mleczko
Animation
Marian Cholerek, Tadeusz Wyroba, Krystyna Lasoń
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Diary of a German Woman
Diary of a German Woman
Michael Englberger, Hans-Joachim Funk, Manfred Krause, Andrew Thorndike, Annelie Thorndike
Annelie Thorndike’s diary entries unfold into a passionate ode to the country and people of the GDR. Occasionally, the eye strays westwards with horror and nostalgia.
Filmstill Diary of a German Woman

Diary of a German Woman

Du bist min. Ein deutsches Tagebuch
Michael Englberger, Hans-Joachim Funk, Manfred Krause, Andrew Thorndike, Annelie Thorndike
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1969
111 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The core of this most personal of the Thorndikes’ projects are Annelie’s diary entries: Her story is to be the starting point for a kind of all-German ‘Heimatfilm’ that praises the utopian power of the GDR and sharply condemns Federal German wrongs, but finds transcendent beauty on both sides of the wall. Over the course of production, however, the visionary dimension of the project was progressively trimmed down, though it’s still tangible everywhere in the compromised final version: The intensity of its pathos is both oppressive and enchanting; some historical simplifications and ideological twists and bends may be hair-raising, but they still achieve the desired effect.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Michael Englberger, Hans-Joachim Funk, Manfred Krause, Andrew Thorndike, Annelie Thorndike
Script
Annelie Thorndike, Andrew Thorndike
Cinematographer
Ernst Oeltze, Hermann Ihde, Christian Lehmann, Siegfried Mogel, Günter Ost, Siegfried Oschatz, Alexander Westlin
Editor
Christa Bramann
Producer
DEFA-Gruppe 67
Sound
Werner Klein
Score
Hans-Dieter Hosalla
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill One Wednesday in June – 20 Years Ago: People’s Uprising, Workers’ Revolt or Secret Services Putsch?
One Wednesday in June – 20 Years Ago: People’s Uprising, Workers’ Revolt or Secret Services Putsch?
Lutz Lehmann
Workers’ revolt or popular uprising? Or an attempted Western coup after all? 20 years after 17 June 1953, a television report looks for answers. The interpretations remain open.
Filmstill One Wednesday in June – 20 Years Ago: People’s Uprising, Workers’ Revolt or Secret Services Putsch?

One Wednesday in June – 20 Years Ago: People’s Uprising, Workers’ Revolt or Secret Services Putsch?

Ein Mittwoch im Juni – Vor 20 Jahren: Volksaufstand, Arbeiterrevolte oder Agentenputsch?
Lutz Lehmann
Retrospective 2023
Documentary Film
FRG
1973
60 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

What happened in the GDR on 17 June 1953? Using a lot of original footage, Norddeutscher Rundfunk looks back on the events in a detailed report marking their 20th anniversary and shows different interpretations and explanations. Agent coup? Workers’ revolt? Popular uprising? The interpretations were controversial, even among contemporary witnesses and Western historians.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Lutz Lehmann
Cinematographer
Hans Jacob
Editor
Elke Düring
Producer
NDR Norddeutscher Rundfunk / German TV ARD Network
Sound
Jürgen Jannsen, Norbert Kinsky
Retrospective 2021
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Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene
Jean-Marie Straub
A film score to which no film was ever made – except this collage of words and images that deduces terrifying anti-Semitic continuities from letters and visual associations.
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Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg’s Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene

Einleitung zu Arnold Schönbergs Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene
Jean-Marie Straub
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
FRG
1972
16 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

“Imminent danger, fear, catastrophe,“ the Austrian-Jewish composer Arnold Schönberg wrote on top of his film score in 1930, to which – except in this collage, swaying like a battered boxer between austere reading document, black film abysses and roaring tempests of images – no film was ever made. Schönberg’s letters articulate the forebodings of the disaster the National Socialists were to bring upon the Jews, describe anti-Semitism that was becoming systematic, marginalization and defamation. Inserted in between, as a look back and forward at historical continuities: bombers approaching Vietnam, the shot Paris Communards in coffins arranged like letter cases.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Jean-Marie Straub
Script
Jean-Marie Straub
Cinematographer
Renato Berta, Horst Bever
Editor
Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet, Danièle Huillet
Producer
Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet
Sound
Jeti Grigioni, Harald Lill
Performer
Günter Peter Straschek, Peter Nestler, Danièle Huillet
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Remembering Means Living
Remembering Means Living
Róża Berger-Fiedler
A walk across the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee and through the Jewish history of the city. The private and the historical, past and present flow into each other.
Filmstill Remembering Means Living

Remembering Means Living

Erinnern heißt Leben
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1987
59 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Róża Berger-Fiedler’s walk through the Jewish Cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee in search of her grandmother’s grave turns into a walk through the chequered Jewish history of the whole city. Interspersed are impressions of Chanukah celebrations at the “Restaurant of Nationalities” Café Moskau in Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin, light-drenched and devout. The film artfully interweaves the past and present of active Jewish life with memories of expulsion and annihilation, brings private and historical perspectives together and thus creates a sensitive approach where in the GDR formal distance was long dominant.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Script
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Cinematographer
Karl-Heinz Müller
Editor
Róża Berger-Fiedler
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme
Sound
Eberhard Schwarz
Retrospective 2021
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That Must Be a Piece of Hitler
Walter Krüttner
A belligerent documentary polemic about Führer tourism at Obersalzberg. The Federal German authorities have prohibited the iniquitous practice but are still cashing in big time.
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That Must Be a Piece of Hitler

Es muß ein Stück vom Hitler sein
Walter Krüttner
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
FRG
1963
11 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Walter Krüttner is considered the only satirist among the signatories of the Oberhausen Manifesto, which was announced at the West German Short Film Festival in 1962. His film begins like those that the Oberhausen group wanted to put a stop to: with ländler music and a quote by regional poet Ganghofer. “Lord, the ones you love you let fall into this land.” Krüttner observes the tourist hustle and bustle at Obersalzberg: tour guides leading Führer travellers through the Nazi buildings. And Krüttner counts the profits West German authorities make by this. He himself profited by winning the “Silberne Lorbeer” (Silver Laurel) of Deutscher Fernsehfunk (German Television Broadcasting), awarded at the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week 1963.

Sylvia Görke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Walter Krüttner
Script
Walter Krüttner
Cinematographer
Fritz Schwennicke
Producer
Cineropa-Filmproduktion
Score
Erich Ferstl
Retrospective 2023
Filmstill Exit
Exit
Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Buehlmann
Refugees from the GDR in Warsaw, shortly before the fall of the Wall. Emotional fates, unfiltered. The interviews were forgotten and only re-discovered 20 years later.
Filmstill Exit

Exit

Wyjście
Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Buehlmann
Retrospective 2023
Documentary Film
Poland
1991
29 minutes
Polish,
German

Shortly before the fall of the Wall, tens of thousands of GDR citizens fled to the West, most of them via Hungary. Many ended up stranded in the West German embassies in Prague and Warsaw. Refugees from the GDR were interviewed in Poland, speaking openly and emotionally of their fates. The footage was forgotten and only re-discovered 20 years later.

Katharina Franck, Andreas Kötzing

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Buehlmann
Cinematographer
Andrzej Adamczak
Editor
Katarzyna Rudnik
Producer
Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych
Sound
Ryszard Krupa
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Women in Neuruppin
Women in Neuruppin
Karola Hattop
A naïve and pushy reporter travels to the provinces to find out about the state of equal rights in practice. A film curiosity of enlightening absurdity.
Filmstill Women in Neuruppin

Women in Neuruppin

Frauen in Neuruppin
Karola Hattop
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1972
29 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

Karola Hattop juxtaposes the many media images of confident working women and the men who support them with a naïve reporter who finds out that in practice equal rights are often quite a different matter. Somewhat pushy, he seeks out women at the hairdresser’s and in the maternity wear department, joins functionaries in their cars, crashes wedding parties and sneaks into museum tours for children. A revelatory curiosity full of the casually captured mundane drabness that was often revealed more clearly in student films than in comparable DEFA productions.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Karola Hattop
Producer
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Behind Windows
Behind Windows
Petra Tschörtner
Three married couples from different milieus, united behind the windows of the same Potsdam high-rise – and in Petra Tschörtner’s interview film about longing, crisis and family.
Filmstill Behind Windows

Behind Windows

Hinter den Fenstern
Petra Tschörtner
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1984
43 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

It’s only after the separation from her husband that another man tells her how valuable she is: the Chladek family, she’s a teacher, he’s a student. The first few years were nothing but quarrels: the Surau family, he’s a plumber, she’s a postal worker. Should she really intend to get further education at evening school, he won’t accept this: the Lehmann family, he’s a locksmith, she’s a lecturer. Three thirtysomething couples live in the Potsdam high-rise behind whose windows Petra Tschörtner looked for her graduation film. Long interviews that pierce the surface at once, equally revealing and oppressive. Promptly awarded a prize at the West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen.

Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Petra Tschörtner
Script
Petra Tschörtner, Fritz-Martin Barber
Cinematographer
Peter Ziesche
Producer
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Hocus-Pocus Fidibus
Hocus-Pocus Fidibus
Bärbl Bergmann
Deeply impressed by a magic show, two boys set out on an educational search for the magician: a mysterious film about the fact that there are no mysteries.
Filmstill Hocus-Pocus Fidibus

Hocus-Pocus Fidibus

Hokuspokus Fidibus
Bärbl Bergmann
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1957
15 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

In works like “Guide Dog Ruepel” (1962), Bärbl Bergmann was the first feature film director in the GDR to portray children in their often pitiless but also honest dealings with each other, something that was almost impossible in the documentary films of that period. But she also managed to sneak lessons on how to pursue educational goals with creative obstinacy into popular science films. Thus her educational piece about two boys who discover that magic, too, requires hard work, despite its rational approach, is far from disenchanting: The protagonists reach their conclusion via detours that take them through mysterious corridors, furtive looks through keyholes and bewitching dreams.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Bärbl Bergmann
Script
Bärbl Bergmann
Cinematographer
Ernst Laude
Editor
Christel Wolfrum
Producer
DEFA-Studio für populärwissenschaftliche Filme
Score
Heinz Vogt
Retrospective 2022
Filmstill Once I Was a Child
Once I Was a Child
Tamara Trampe
An equally delicate and lucid observation of life in a kindergarten: the childish joy of storytelling between free development and integration into the social norms.
Filmstill Once I Was a Child

Once I Was a Child

Ich war einmal ein Kind
Tamara Trampe
Retrospective 2022
Documentary Film
GDR
1986
17 minutes
German
Subtitles: 
None

The interviews conducted by Tamara Trampe in a Pankow kindergarten testify to a rare attempt to enter the world of the young interviewees completely, to give their stories a space where reality and fantasy, worries and wishes can mix freely. A space that’s not always provided in the daily life of the kindergarten, as the film casually suggests even after it was toned down by the DEFA censors: toilets without doors, ghastly birthday parties and friendly but unmistakable reprimands when the children let too much dialect slip into the grammar exercise or when their pictures of soldiers are not realistic enough.

Felix Mende

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Tamara Trampe
Script
Tamara Trampe
Cinematographer
Thomas Plenert
Producer
DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme
Sound
Peter Dienst, Eberhard Pfaff
Concept
Annerose Richter