Themes & Genres
© DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst
© DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst
This theme highlights the importance accorded to the arts and artists in the socialist state. East German films addressing this topic fall into one of several categories. Many DEFA feature films recount the lives of well-known artists of the past, including Goya, The Lost Angel, Marriage in the Shadows and Käthe Kollwitz: Images of a Life. Many documentaries about artists were also made, such as Three of Many, Hermann Glöckner – A Brief Visit and Slatan Dudow – A Film About a Marxist Artist. Other films, such as Solo Sunny and The Architects, present fictional stories about artists and the challenges they face in society. Yet other DEFA films represent the work of artists filmically; The Flying Dutchman belongs to this category, as do Tuba wa Duo, Latest from the Da-Da-R and Transformations, three experimental shorts by painter and director Jürgen Böttcher. Finally, the DEFA Film Library collection also includes films about avant-garde and underground artistic activity in the GDR, such as La Villette, Counter Images and The Subversive Camera.
See also: The Artists of the Marx-Engels Forum, Artists Featured in the Film La Villette