For anyone whose preconceptions about life in East Germany are informed by what was taught in American schools, whisper & SHOUT (flüstern & SCHREIEN) is the film to see. Made in 1988, it follows the exploits of several East German rock bands as they travel from venue to venue. In between, the film stops to …
Category: Wende
Miraculi
Throughout its existence, DEFA, East Germany's state-owned film studio, released movies that pushed the boundaries. Some of these, such as Divided Heaven, Farewell, In the Dust of the Stars, and The Airship would make it onto movie screens. A few were shelved, but it was usually for political reasons rather than a film’s style. It …
Jana and Jan
With the notable exception of horror movies, the East German film industry (that is to say, DEFA) made films of nearly every genre from Westerns to science fiction; from thrillers to romantic comedies. If it were a Hollywood film, Jana and Jan (Jana und Jan) would be categorized as a women-in-prison film, but without the …
The Land Beyond the Rainbow
After the Wall came down and West Germany, for all intents and purposes, took over East Germany, there followed the inevitable retrospection. What the hell happened? How did we get from there to here? There were plenty of people who still believed in socialism and thought it could lead to a better world than unbridled …
Herzsprung
When the Berlin Wall finally came down, East Germans danced for joy in the streets. No more Stasi, no more food shortages, no more travel restrictions, and no more fiddling with their Trabis to get the damned things started. At the time, most people in East Germany were glad to see the backside of the …
The Mistake
The final years of East Germany’s existence saw a relaxation of the restrictions on what could be filmed and what couldn’t. After the Wende, DEFA continued to exist for a few years, and continued to make films using the same stable of technicians and actors, but now they could make films about the one thing …
The Tango Player
Following the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, events in East Germany started happening fast. Faster than DEFA could keep up with. Less than a year after that first batch of East Germans streamed into West Berlin in their Trabants, the GDR ceased to exist. Yet DEFA soldiered on, buffeted mercilessly by …
Winter Adé
The first films made in what would become East Germany after the War (at that point, still the Soviet sector), were short documentary films. Most of these early films were for propaganda purposes, showing how the Soviet Union was helping rebuild Germany after the war. After DEFA was established, documentary films were handled by a …
Latest from the Da-Da-R
Identifying the beginning of the East German movie industry is easy. It began in 1946 with The Murderers Are Among Us. That film—started before DEFA even existed—was the first of a long line of excellent films to come out of the GDR before the government came crashing down under the weight of its own ossification …
Look at This City!
On Sunday morning, August 13, 1961, the citizens of Berlin woke up to a remarkable event. While they were sleeping, East German soldiers had constructed a barbed wire fence around the entire city of West Berlin. Workers were already beginning to tear up the roads between the east and the west, and armed soldiers stood …
East German Cinema Blog 