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).

Painter and performance artist Cornelia Schleime’s Draped in White, based on her performance series (1982-84), is a surreal reference to both a bridal veil and the bandaged, cloaked and wrapped female body. The motifs of immobility and imprisonment are references to the political situation in East Germany.

Schleime, a strong feminist voice in the East German underground art scene, moved to West Berlin in 1984.

Available on the DVD Counter Images: GDR Underground Films, 1983-1989.

Dammbeck filmed this material during an event at Sredzkistrasse Gallery, a private exhibition space in East Berlin, in February 1984. Later, he captured the video material from a 16mm screening and projected it during his media collages.

Scenes of a big (American?) city—crowded streets, police, garbage—morph into alienated settings forefronting graffiti, Hip-Hop and Rap music. The score is music by Bobo (who worked with Rammstein in later years) and Alexander Morawitz (Electric b). Both musicians were part of the 1980s GDR Rap scene, which was considered an unwanted influence from the West and was under Stasi surveillance.

The animator uses expressive drawings in this filmic interpretation of Robert Schumann’s delightful Träumerei (Dreaming), from Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) written for piano in 1838. (Part of DEFA’s Musical Arabesques animation series.)

This puppet animation film is based on Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. A 1936 symphonic fairy tale for children, the piece tells the story of Peter and a little bird who outwit and catch the dangerous wolf and take him to a zoo.

Each character in the tale is represented by a corresponding instrument in the orchestra, helping children learn to distinguish the sonorities of each instrument. Prokofiev’s piece was a staple of music education in East German elementary schools.

—2018 Berlin International Film Festival

An animated interpretation of Suite No. 4, composed and performed by the Bayon musical ensemble. Based in the GDR, Bayon’s works blend Khmer pentatonic music with classical, jazz and rock elements. More recently, one of the group’s songs was featured in The Lives of Others (2006). (Part of DEFA’s Musical Arabesques animation series.)  

Chile 1985: The repression of the Chilean people by the Pinochet dictatorship and the resistance of the people. Black-and-white photographs by artists who must remain unknown and original documentary footage are accompanied by the music of the exiled composer and singer-songwriter Angel Parra, son of Chilean composer and singer Violeta Parra.

Kate Dollenmayer, Audiovisual Archivist at The Wende Museum in Los Angeles, is screening four super-8mm home movies by GDR amateur filmmakers during our 2015 Summer Film Institute.

While some East Germans were part of organized film clubs, these films were made by hobbyists documenting their personal lives—holidays, trips, family events—for their own private use.

We are grateful to The Wende Museum for making the following shorts available for the 2015 Summer Film Institute:

A group of playing children are suddenly hit by a neutron bomb. A businessman collects and sells the clothes they leave behind. A cut-out animated film.

Part of the playlist Chilean Films in Exile – Shorts by Juan Forch and also available for a Digital Site License for educational partners. Please find more information here.

This animated short exposes the Pinochet government through comparisons to Hitler's Nazi regime using cut-out silhouettes.

Part of the playlist Chilean Films in Exile – Shorts by Juan Forch and also available for a Digital Site License for educational partners. Please find more information here.

This short documentary, meant to be the first in a series on current issues, was Slatan Dudow’s first film. As it turned out, it was also the only one made for the series. Dudow shot his film in the streets and courtyards of depression-era Berlin. The film aesthetic and editing style he later used in Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World? (1932) are already evident in this documentary.