In December of 1965, The 11th Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED left East Germany’s film industry in ruins. Some films (most notably, The Rabbit is Me) were shelved after playing briefly in theaters, while others (e.g., Born in ‘45, Carla, and When You Grow Up, Dear Adam) didn’t reach the theaters until …
Stars
For its first 25 years, two things kept the rest of the world from learning that East Germany was producing some of the best films in Europe. First was the country’s unfortunate tendency to ban its directors’ best efforts. Films such as The Axe of Wandsbek, Sun Seekers, Born in ‘45, and The Rabbit is …
Sun Seekers
In 1947, the Soviets began their mining operations in the Schlema Valley in the southeastern region of Saxony. They called their mining company “Wismut,” the German word for bismuth, because they didn’t want the U.S. to know they were really mining uranium. After what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Russians wanted to make sure …
In the Dust of the Stars
Sometimes referred to as the “East German Barbarella,” In the Dust of the Stars (Im Staub der Sterne) is one of the strangest films to grace the movie screens of the GDR; or anywhere else for that matter. Featuring a cast that hailed from a number of different Eastern European countries, In the Dust of …
Rotation
As its title suggests, a recurring image throughout Rotation is the wheel. The wheel in this case appears in various forms, from the cylinders of the printing press that act as the film’s Greek chorus, to the carousel at a fair where Hans Behneke, the film’s protagonist, is forced to work during the Weimar Republic’s …
Born in ’45
When the noted East German director/cinematographer, Werner Bergmann, left the preview screening of Born in ‘45 (Jahrgang 45), he turned to Roland Gräf, the film’s cinematographer, and spat: “Eastern Bloc Italians!” He may have meant it as an insult, but Gräf took it as a compliment. Born in ‘45 was a conscious attempt to duplicate …
The Axe of Wandsbeck
When reviewing the post-war films of East Germany (or West Germany, for that matter), there is a tendency to temper one’s reviews by limiting any comparisons to the other German films of the same era. That is to say, you can write lots of nice things about these films, but just don’t compare them to …
Carbide and Sorrel
By the early 1960s, the Cold War was hotter than ever. The Cuban revolution in 1959, the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 led to a situation where people on both sides of the Iron Curtain were expecting World War III to start at any minute. So …
Her Third
For all of the problems inherent in East Germany’s political system, one area where the East decidedly surpassed the West was in its attitude toward women in the workplace. While women in West Germany and America were still relegated—almost forcibly—to the home and kitchen, East Germany and the USSR were allowing women to work alongside …
Your Unknown Brother
Your Unknown Brother takes place in 1935; many years before the GDR was established. Although it is ostensibly about the Nazi regime, the parallels to East Germany in the 1980s are obvious. Uwe Kockisch plays Arnold Clasen, a member of the banned Communist party who was arrested for painting communist slogans on a wall. After …
East German Cinema Blog 