Starting from the 1973 DEFA film Too Young for Love? (dir. Bernhard Stephan), director Hosek explores youth films produced by the DEFA Studio for Feature Film. She sees these movies as attempts to create a sense of Heimat within socialism and notes how they reflected on an existing contradiction between the real world and its idealization. Focusing on music in Too Young for Love? by the popular Hungarian musician Levente Szörenyi as well as on references to Cuba—including Tamara Bunke and Che Guevara, presented as exotic heroes for GDR youth—she analyzes transnational elements in relation to East German travel restrictions.

Available from Vimeo FILMBOX, DEFA Film Libray's Digital Teaching Archive.