DEFA Presents WAGENSTEIN100

The DEFA Film Library will present WAGENSTEIN100 at Amherst Cinema, on DEFA’s Vimeo and Kanopy from Tuesday, Oct. 11 to Tuesday, Nov. 1.

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The retrospective marks the 100th birthday of Bulgarian-Jewish screenwriter, novelist and lifelong revolutionary Angel Wagenstein, who wrote over fifty film scripts for Bulgarian, Czech, West and East German film studios.

DEFA’s selection of five films explores the work of an unusually complex film artist, steeped in the overlapping cultures of his Sephardic childhood, his wartime activities as commander of a Jewish partisan brigade and the massive ideological debates of postwar Eastern Europe.

DEFA Film Library’s academic director Mariana Ivanova says, “With this retrospective the DEFA Film Library honors an intellectual giant and film artist of great refinement, who made a crucial and powerful contribution to East German, Eastern European and world cinema.”

Find the complete program, including information about a free streaming option of Angel Wagenstein’s masterpiece and Cannes-awarded Holocaust film “Stars” on umass.edu/defa.