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The DEFA Film Library has contributed four articles to the annual film journal Leuchtkraft, published in December 2024 by the Berlin-based DEFA Foundation.

In advance of the upcoming 2025 centennial celebration of Konrad Wolf, who is considered one of Europe’s most important filmmakers, Barton Byg, founding director of the DEFA Film Library, wrote the article “Konrad Wolf und seine Klassenkameraden” (“Konrad Wolf and His Schoolmates”), while academic director Mariana Ivanova’s latest research was presented in the essay “Die Goya-Verfilmung: Marta Feuchtwangers Freundschaft mit Konrad Wolf oder Der lange Weg der Erkenntnis” (“The Goya Adaptation: Marta Feuchtwanger’s Friendship with Konrad Wolf, or The Long Way to Enlightenment”).

Production and outreach manager Hiltrud Schulz’s interview with Isabel Mardones, film curator at the Goethe-Institut Santiago, Chile, reflects on Mardones’s involvement in the founding of the Chilean National Cinematheque and the role of East German cinema in “Auf der Suche nach den verlorenen chilenischen Filmen (“In Search for the Lost Chilean Films”).

Finally, celebrated German scriptwriter Laila Stieler’s text, “Momente: Zufriedene Füsse” (“Moments: Satisfied Feet”), a meditation on the poetry in DEFA scriptwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase’s work, appears in the journal. Stieler’s essay was originally commissioned by the DEFA Film Library for a special social media “Close-Up” series in 2023.

The German-language issue of the Leuchtkraft journal is available on the DEFA Foundation website.