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Film
Tours
Filmmakers Tour 2008: Rainer Simon 
Acclaimed (East) German director Rainer
Simon visited North America from September to November 2008. Most
of Simon's films have been newly subtitled. The film tour program
includes six feature films and three documentaries. Rainer Simon
started his career at the East German DEFA film studios in 1965,
working as an assistant director under Ralf Kirsten (The Lost Angel, 1966) and Konrad Wolf (I Was Nineteen, 1967). Simon made his directing debut in 1968, with the children’s film How to Marry a King. His major films include: Till Eulenspiegel (1975), based on a film script by Christa and Gerhard Wolf; The Airship (1983); The Woman and the Stranger (1984), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; and Jadup and Boel (1981), which was banned by officials and not released until 1988. Since shooting The Ascent of the Chimborazo
(1989) in Ecuador, Simon’s work has focused on the life and
culture of the indigenous people of Ecuador. Also known as a
documentarist, writer and photographer, Simon teaches film workshops
for young filmmakers in Ecuador.
The Films of Jurek Becker
Four films based on the work of
renowned East German Jewish writer Jurek Becker are available to book
for your institution, including While All Germans Sleep (Beyer, 1994), Bronstein's Children (Jerzy Kavalerowicz, 1990), Shortcut to Istanbul (Dresen, 1990) and Jacob the Liar (Beyer, 1974)
The touring series is supported by the DEFA Film Library at UMass
Amherst, as well as the DEFA Foundation, PROGRESS Film-Verleih, ZDF
television, and the Academy for Film and Television Potsdam-Babelsberg.
Rebels with a Cause: The
Cinema of East Germany
The Rebels
with a Cause film series
was the most comprehensive retrospective
of East German
cinema ever screened in the U.S. Screened first at the Museum
of Modern Art in New York in October 2005, it brought together
scholars, directors and actors of the DEFA to present the films and
reflect on the political complexities of artistic production in the
East German state-owned DEFA studios. These films were
crafted by inventive filmmakers who dared to test the limits of
censorship, and whose films’ political engagement and depth
add to their creative merit in the context of film history.
For this series of 21 films, the Museum of Modern Art looked for a
range of voices and styles from five decades of filmmaking, placing an
emphasis on creative energy, artistic innovation, and challenges to
authority – hence the title, Rebels with a Cause.
All titles on tour are on newly restored 35mm prints with English
subtitles.
Shadows and Sojourners: Images of
Jews and Antifascism in East German Film
The
Shadows and Sojourners film series is  the first
North American retrospective of East German films representing the
intertwined themes of German/Jewish relations, antifascism, and the
Holocaust. Presenting unique views of the Jewish experience and
critiques of Nazi Germany seldom seen by U.S. audiences, these classics
of the East German antifascist tradition are hailed by the British Film
Institute as "the most consistent and coherent analysis of fascism of
any national cinema."
Included are thirteen subtitled films that range
in approach from focusing directly on the Jewish experience to
exploring German guilt and the role of anti-Nazi resistance. Featuring
such acclaimed German directors as Frank Beyer (Jacob the Liar,
Naked Among Wolves), Kurt Maetzig (Marriage
in the Shadows, Council of the Gods),
Wolfgang Staudte (The Murderers Are among Us,
Rotation), and Konrad Wolf (Professor Mamlock, Sterne),
the series is suitable for screening at film festivals,
cinemathèques and classrooms. Titles are available in different formats, as noted, and can be booked individually.
Berlin,
Divided Heaven: From the Ice Age to the Thaw
 The city of Berlin has had a
history unlike any other. Early in the century it was a world center of
modernism, later the capital of Hitler's Third Reich. Then, after the
city was virtually destroyed by war, the iron curtain was drawn through
it. Berlin became a microcosm of the Cold War, as the capital of
communist German Democratic Republic in the East, and an island city of
West Germany, "cut off" from the Federal Republic. The fall of the Wall
in 1989 and subsequent unification of Germany the following year began
a new and challenging age for Berlin, now the capital of a "new
Germany." While this change challenged all Germans, those from the East
were most radically affected, as their country longer existed.
The
DEFA Film Library is offering an intriguing selection of films that
address Berlin divided and united with an emphasis on the East German
perspective. The films on tour will offer a variety of perspectives on
the history and people of this dynamic city, from the Berlin Airlift
and the post-war openness of the divided city, to poetic images that
reflect on urban identities East and West
and the architectural effects of unification turmoil. You may select
just one, all, or a few, as they
contribute to your own emphasis. All titles on tour have English
subtitles.
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