Wer fürchtet sich vorm schwarzen Mann (Who's Afraid of the Bogeyman)

1989, 50 min. b/w, Documentary
Director: Helke Misselwitz
Cinematography: Thomas Plenert
Screenplay: Helke Misselwitz
35mm, English subtitles - renting information

Synopsis:

A close-up of Berlin coal carriers from Prenzlauer Berg. No portrayal of worker heroes or progress here. Instead, bright, deeply-felt sketches of rough men and their resolute woman boss.

“Refreshing and new... A beautiful, sometimes whimsical documentation of Berlin workers. A cinematic correction of what, in general, was valued in an East German documentary.”
- Elke Schieber, film historian

About the Director:

Helke Misselwitz was born in 1947 in Planitz and spent nine years working for GDR television in youth programming. She studied directing at the Academy for Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg from 1978 to 1982. Her request to enter the DEFA Studio for Feature Films was refused, so she took other jobs while making short essayistic films for the DEFA Studio for Documentary Films. When Heiner Carow accepted her as a master pupil at the GDR Academy of the Arts in 1985, she created a key documentary film about women in the final years of the GDR, Winter Adé (1988). Misselwitz was a director at the DEFA Studio for Documentary Films from 1988 to 1991. She directed her first feature film, Herzsprung, in 1992, followed by Little Angel in 1996. She is professor of directing at the Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg.