DEFA Film Library - The Cinema of East Germany

Congratulations to Andreas Dresen, who was awarded on May 25, 2008 with the "Heart Throb" Jury Prize for his film Cloud Nine (Wolke Neun) at the Cannes Film Festival! A largely improvisational tragicomedy about an elderly woman who has an affair with an older man after 30 years of marriage, the film was enthusiastically received by the Un Certain Regard jury and the audience at Cannes.

Two of Dresen's previous remarkable films, Silent Country and Changing Skins, are available for purchase and rental from the DEFA Film Library.

Pictured at Left (from left to right): Andreas Dresen and cast members Horst Rehberg, Steffi Kühnert and Horst Westphal
Photo © picture-alliance/ dpa

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New Rental Titles Available

We have added several exciting new titles for rental, including five recently released films
from ö-filmproduktion and, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Boston, seven of the rarely seen television films of Michael Haneke.

ö-filmproduktion is a Berlin-based production company that features numerous award-winning films, filmed in and about daily life in the "new Germany," such as My Death is Not Yours (Mein Tod ist nicht dein Tod, 2006, pictured at right.)

More about ö-film Rentals

The groundbreaking Michael Haneke Retrospective, which premiered at The Museum of Modern Art in October 2007, is now available for rental. Since then, this most comprehensive collection of Haneke's work ever screened for an English-language audience, curated by Roy Grundmann (Film Studies, Boston University), has been touring North America. Michael Haneke: A Cinema of Provocation includes 7 of Haneke's television productions (subtitled by the DEFA Film Library), which are now available to rent through the Goethe-Institut in Boston; to bring these TV productions to your institution, please contact Karin Oehlenschlaeger.

More about Michael Haneke Rentals

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The Stasi & 2 New DVD Releases Last to Know

In East Germany, the Stasi (or Secret Police) impacted the life of almost every East German citizen. Between 1949 and 1989, almost 600,000 people were registered as "informal" agents and supported Stasi operations. Two new subtitled DVD releases are great for teaching about this history and link into the discussion about the Stasi from different angles:

· Last to Know, a 2006 documentary by Marc Bauder & Dörthe Franke, features four former political prisoners, branded enemies of the East German state. Almost 20 years later, it is still hard to come to terms with such dark memories and talk about them with their children. Announced for August, the DVD will also include an original Stasi training film and case file (translated into English).

· Counter Images: GDR Underground Films (1983-1986) presents 10 short Super-8 films made by 10 young artists, musicians, and writers searching for new forms of expression within the restrictions of the GDR, especially after Wolf Biermann's expatriation in 1976. In a country where all art was subject to state control, the Stasi kept close tabs on these films and tried to infiltrate the provocative underground film scene. This DVD also includes an informative 47-min. documentary, The Subversive Camera (1997, Dir. Cornelia Klauß), and biographies of the ten directors, many of whom are now leading figures in the German art world (e.g., Helge Leiberg, Via Lewandowsky and Cornelia Schleime).

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For our biennial filmmaker's tour, we are proud to announce that acclaimed (East) German director Rainer Simon (The Ascent of the Chimborazo, The Woman and the Stranger) will visit North America from October to November 2008. Most of Simon's films were never subtitled, so we are currently trying to make available as many films with English subtitles as possible. The film tour program so far includes six feature films and three documentaries. To bring the director and his films to your institution and for more information, please e-mail Hiltrud at video [at] german.umass.edu.

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New DVD Releases This Summer (more)

The DEFA Film Library, in collaboration with ICESTORM International, has released seven more DVD releases this summer. The titles include The Bicycle and Berlin-Schoenhauser Corner, which were both part of the retrospective Rebels with a Cause – The Cinema of East Germany, the 1965-banned movie Carla by scriptwriter Ulrich Plenzdorf who died in August 2006, the two East German film classics SOLO SUNNY and The Kaiser’s Lackey, the historical collage using historical footage, original documents and interviews That Was the GDR, as well as DEFA Animation Vol. 1: Without Words, a collection of 16 cartoons made in East Germany.

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