Films: GDR

The Pain of Lusatia - Žałosći nam Łužyca - Schmerzen der Lausitz; Žałosći nam Łužyca (1990)

Part 3 of Peter Rocha's Lusatia Trilogy: From fall 1989 to spring 1990, the film crew documented the advancing destruction of the Lusatia region.

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Banal Days - Banale Tage (1990)

East Berlin, late 1970s. Thomas is a toolmaker apprentice with a working-class background and Michael is a high school student from an educated middle-class family. They meet one night at a club and quickly bond over their desire to rebel against their fathers, teachers and supervisors in a paternalistic society that does not let young people follow their own paths and dreams.

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action situation - action situation (1983)

Painter and graphic artist Helge Leiberg filmed real-life scenes in Dresden and subsequently employed them in his 1982 here comes the sun. Here, they are painted over with images of moving and changing simple forms and shapes in different colors or montaged with images of detailed paintings and  cut out heads and figures. The film experiment displays Leiberg’s typical color and form schemes and is layered with improvised sound and music collages.

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The Long Way - Der lange Weg (1989)

A seagull is injured during a dangerous storm and ends up in a forest where she joins a family of woodpeckers. But she gets rejected by the older family members. A young woodpecker falls in love with her and together they leave the forest and go to the sea, where the seagulls live. There the strange woodpecker is rejected. Now they are both looking for a place where they can happily live together.

The mainly black-and-white drawings used in this short were created by painter, graphic artists and member of the Super-8 film scene, Andreas Dress (1943-2019).

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The Children of Palestine - Die Kinder Palästinas (1980)

The film crew talks with Palestinian families who have been driven from their homeland after the UN petition for the division of Palestine and the founding of the State of Israel on Palestinian land in 1948. Many Nakba survivors ended up in Lebanese refugee camps, including Bayt al-Sumud, Bourj al-Barajneh and Rashidiyyeh, where they have lived for over three decades under the harshest conditions.

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Farewell Disco - Abschiedsdisco (1989)

15-year-old Henning is deeply shaken by the death of Silke, his first love. He decides to visit his grandfather one more time in his village that soon must give way to brown coal mining. Henning is speechless when he sees excavators eating through the landscape, destroying all life. In the almost deserted area, he encounters various people: A scavenger; a villager, who saves animals; and a woman in a closed disco. Being in this seemingly haunted environment, questions arise for the boy about the responsibility of saving the earth.

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Chilean Films in Exile – Shorts by Juan Forch - (1975)

The Chilean director and poet Juan Forch (1948-) immigrated via Mexico to East Germany after the military coup in 1973. He joined the DEFA Studio for Animation Films in Dresden and learned the craft of animation. Between 1975 and 1978, he made several animation and documentary films drawing on his Chilean background and his political experiences in exile.

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Chilean Experiences in East German Cinema - (1974)

In the 1970s, the East German DEFA Studios responded to the military coup in Chile in 1973. They produced films about Chile and Chilean exiles that were not simply reactions to the political upheavals or demonstrations of solidarity with the Chilean people. In many cases, Chilean artists were directly involved in the creation of these films or were central to the film’s story.

 

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The Free Orchestra - Das Freie Orchester (1988)

Day in, day out, Barbara sells screws at a store in the East Berlin Market Hall. She is frustrated about having to tell her customers most of the time: “Ham wa nich!” (We don’t have that!) In the evening, she is the loud and wild singer of the legendary East Berlin avantgarde and punk band Das Freie Orchester. Playing music with her friends helps her escape the monotony of her job, convey feelings of unfulfillment with everyday life in East Germany in the 1980s and dream of a different life.

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Aparcoa - Gruppe Aparcoa (1977)

A portrait of the Latin American folkloric music ensemble Aparcoa, which was formed in Chile in 1965. The group went into exile and settled in Rostock, East Germany, in 1974. The Chilean Poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda shared about their music: “Aparcoa is a serious euphonic movement.” This short includes original photographs of the band and observes them during a studio recording session.

 

The film is also available with Spanish subtitles.

 

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Copihuito - Copihuito (1977)

Young Chilean pioneers create a newspaper together in East Berlin, the capital of the GDR. They call it "Copihuito," the name of a climbing plant that grows in Chile and symbolizes the resistance of the Chilean people against any form of oppression. The young writers and editors created the paper for Chilean and East German children. Following the development of “Copihuito” from concept to print, this documentary gives the young Chileans a chance to share why this newspaper is so important to them.

 

The film is also available with Spanish subtitles.

 

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Woe to the Vanquished: The Workers' Uprising, 17 June 1953 - Wehe den Besiegten – Der 17. Juni 1953 Der 17. Juni 1953 (1990)

This documentary explores the events that led up to the East German Popular Uprising on June 17, 1953, and what happened during and after that day. Filmmaker Andrea Ritterbusch incorporates the memories of fates of those involved, from strike leaders to a prison warden; from a woman whose husband disappeared to former top SED officials and contemporary witnesses from West Germany. The result is an emotionally moving film about the course and consequences of the 1953 rebellion. The documentary is interspersed with unpublished archival material.

 

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