Celebrating

KONRAD WOLF 100

In 2025, we celebrate director Konrad Wolf’s 100th birthday and we we will list our events and activities here.

“Konrad Wolf (1925-1982) was East Germany‘s greatest filmmaker and also an influential public figure in his country‘s political and cultural life. As artist and representative of the GDR, he had to perform a complex balancing act between aesthetic conscience and political function […]. His work covers almost the whole lifespan of the GDR, in a range of filmic styles and genres, from musicals to antifascist films to films of everyday life. […] Wolf‘s entire oeuvre, proposes that we understand his work as an archive both of his own personal experience and of the ideology of socialism, embedded in self-reflexive filmic forms and generic references that put Wolf in the vicinity of other filmmakers like Fassbinder, Wajda, and Tarkovsky.”   —Larson Powell, The Films of Konrad Wolf: Archive of the Revolution

"[Konrad Wol'fs] loss from the echelons of international culture is irreplaceable."   —The American Film Institute, "Toward a New Social Cinema," 1983

“Cinema in the German Democratic Republic,” that opened with a quote by East German director Günter Reich on Konrad Wolf: “He was the conscience of art for us in this country. Many of our best directors measured their won films after his—whether ‘Koni’ would approve of them—for they treasured both his morale and his integrity. He was the criterion and the soul of the very art of how one should approach culture.”   —Günter Reisch on Konrad Wolf, "Cinema in the German Democratic Republic," 1983

2026                             

Jan. 14

Lecture on Goya, by Mariana Ivanova (DEFA Film Library), Film Museum Potsdam, Germany at 7:30 pm.

Spring

Publication of Teaching Guide Sun Seekers, written by Katerina Korola ((U of Minnesota)

2025                                         

Oct.

Konrad Wolf retrospective, organized by the Goethe-Institute Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sept.    

GSA Roundtable KonradWolf100: “Beyond the GDR—Konrad Wolf’s Transnational Concepts” organized by Mariana Ivanova (DEFA Film Library) und Seán Allan (St Andrews U). Participants Seán Allan, Mariana Ivanova, Michael Wedel (Film U Babelsberg Konrad Wolf), Elizabeth Ward (Europe U Viadrina), and Qinna Shen (Bryn Mawr College). Supported by the DEFA Film Library, Arlington, VA, USA 

Sept. 25    

German Studies Association’s ARTS NIGHT: Sun Seekers, Arlington, VA, USA

Sept.    

Virtual film series, KonradWolf100, presented by the DEFA Film Library, the German Studies Association, German Film Office, and the North American Goethe-Institutes, DEFA’s Vimeo

May    

Close-Up series: Sun Seekers in the Industrial Environment, written by Katerina Korola (U of Minnesota), Instagram @defafilmlibraryamherst

May 8 – June    

El cine de Konrad Wolf, Casa del Arte Diego Rivera, Puerto Montt, Goethe-Institut Santiago, Chile 

April – June    

Films by Konrad Wolf reviewed in Variety, Instagram @defafilmlibraryamherst

March        

Release of Konrad Wolf’s film adaption The Little Prince (1966) for educational streaming. With English subtitles for the first time.

Jan – Dec.

Poster of the Month, virtual exhibition with posters of Konrad Wolf’s films, Instagram @defafilmlibraryamherst

Jan    

Publishing a bibliography of English-written texts, essays, and articles on Konrad Wolf’s films