Retrospectives

Once There Was the Wall
Masterworks of East German Cinema
This retrospective of DEFA masterworks screens at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome May 5-28, in tandem with an exhibition of Georg Baselitz paintings entitled The Heroes. It is exciting that these films are being shown in the home of Italian Neorealism, which exerted a huge influence on GDR feature film makers!
The retrospective is presented by the Goethe-Institut Rome, featuring films subtitled and made available by the Goethe-Institut Central Office in Munich. As their materials explain: "The archive of the former German Democratic Republic contains a veritable treasury of films that are virtually unknown in this country, works of exceptional quality that are a testament to a unique context within the 20th-century film scene. They are mirror images of a parallel world, caught between the propaganda and stipulations of the government on one hand, and evasive artistic maneuvers that attempted to highlight social contradictions, without succumbin to censorship...."
We are very pleased that our partnership with the Goethe-Institut system has helped make these screenings possible and look forward to hearing about the reactions of Italian audiences to these classic East German films.