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In commemoration of the 50^th anniversary and in memory of the victims of the military coup d’état in Chile on Sept. 11, 1973, the DEFA Film Library has released 18 newly digitized feature, animation and documentary films with English and Spanish subtitles.

The films, presented collectively under the title Solidarity! The Chilean Experience in East German Cinema, offer different perspectives of the Chilean experience through the lens of East German filmmaking and in the context of East German international socialist solidarity efforts during the Cold War. Chilean exile artists were involved from directing, scriptwriting to performing.

Film scholar and director Claudia Sandberg of the University of Melbourne, Australia, who researched the films for many years, will join Mariana Ivanova, associate professor and academic director of the DEFA Film Library, later in this fall for an Instagram DEFA live conversation on the importance of these films that changed the canon of East German filmmaking. For more information, visit the DEFA Film Library website.

In addition, DEFA will publish a teaching guide written by Carla Steinbrecher, University St Andrew, U.K., for the film Blond Tango, based on the 1983 novel by Chilean writer Omar Saavedra Santis.