The Timorous Bellboys

Note: This article originally appeared on a site devoted to comparing two different versions of the same story. I decided to discontinue the site because the amount of work that went into the articles was well beyond the attention they received. I'm republishing this one here because it pertains to a film that I've already …

Continue reading The Timorous Bellboys

Radio GDR: Female Directors in East Germany

I recently returned to the Radio GDR studio (virtually speaking) to engage in a discussion on the female directors of East Germany. I was joined by Jeffrey Babcock, who curated a program on East German cinema for the Goethe Institute in Amsterdam, and show host Steve Minegar. It was a fun interview but shows how …

Continue reading Radio GDR: Female Directors in East Germany

The Female Directors of East Germany Pt. 1: The DEFA Directors

A short overview of the women directors who worked at DEFA.

The 100th Post!

I was going to post about yet another film when I suddenly realized that this marks the 100th post on the East German Cinema Blog. When I started this project four years, I had no idea if anyone else in the world was interested in these films. Since then I have discovered a thriving community …

Continue reading The 100th Post!

Hot Summer

By the end of the 1960s, it was obvious to all but the most iron-headed autocrats that East Germany was facing a crisis of culture. Despite every effort to seal the public off from the invidious influences of the West, information was getting through, and the young people of the GDR were becoming more and …

Continue reading Hot Summer

The Murderers Are Among Us

The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns), still stands as one of the greatest films to come out of East Germany.

The Silent Star

It is worth noting that while people often give Star Trek credit for using a multi-ethnic cast at a time when TV in American was almost exclusively the domain of white males, The Silent Star had already done this six years earlier.