Films: No dialogue

Eureka: The Egg

defa_admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 15:15:36 +0000

A man has a hankering for a breakfast egg. Because the hen cannot deliver one on demand, he invents a machine to create an egg independent of the animal. But the finished product is dismal. In the meantime, the hen has been able to lay the desired egg.

The Rocking Cube

defa_admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 15:11:11 +0000

The rhythm of rock music makes a cube move. The cube suddenly develops an astonishing life of its own. Emotions are reflected in its dance in this puppet animation.

…and Consider the End

defa_admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 14:54:01 +0000

A group of people with ever-increasing greed and increasing opportunities for power to match. They devour and destroy everything, but the Earth eventually cannot withstand any more and they sink into the rubble.

Filopat & Patafil: The Race

defa_admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 14:50:17 +0000

The tall, arrogant Filopat and the short, clever Patafil want to race each other all the way to a tree on the horizon. While Patafil prepares for the race, Filopat measures the course and covertly builds a ditch crossing the track to shake off Patafil. But clever Patafil challenges his unfair opponent for a second race and beats him at his own game. Patafil makes the ditch even wider.

The Long Way

defa_admin — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 15:47:44 +0000

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.

Draped in White

defa_admin — Wed, 19 May 2021 15:46:17 +0000

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.

Hercules Video

defa_admin — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 16:46:07 +0000

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.

Quick Animation

defa_admin — Sat, 23 Mar 2019 00:31:25 +0000

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.

Dreaming

defa_admin — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 02:32:31 +0000

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.)

Peter and the Wolf

defa_admin — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 02:24:43 +0000

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.

Musical Arabesques: Suite

defa_admin — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 02:19:05 +0000

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). The film uses graphic abstractions created with watercolors and colored pencils.

Snapshots from Chile

kdevane — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 18:56:45 +0000

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.

Home Movies from the Wende Museum

kdevane — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 12:00:37 +0000

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.

Neutron Peace?

kdevane — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 19:10:23 +0000

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.

Hitlerpinochet

kdevane — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:54:25 +0000

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