Votes: 137,981 | Gross: $4.06M. These films prominently feature musical performances, including opera adaptations and musicals. Thus, the WWI films focus less on soldiers’ experience of trench warfare and more on the wartime experience of individual men and women, of generations and families, and of what war’s interface with the contemporaneous workers’ movement and Russian revolution. While Konrad Wolf finally succeeded in getting his banned 1957 film Sun Seekers released, other films were put on ice—including one of the first DEFA films made by a female director, The Dove on the Roof. The films of the postwar period thus defy and complicate the historical relationship between continuity and rupture. The political backdrop for (East) German film production in the 1950s was marked by the founding of the two German states, the beginning of the Cold War, accompanied by intense fear of atomic war, the peaking of the artistic doctrine of Socialist Realism and the end of Stalinism. In European socialist parlance, the Nazis were considered part of the fascist phenomenon that had also taken hold in Italy and Spain. The standouts being the dwarves' cottage and the wedding costumes. Yet DEFA soldiered on, buffeted mercilessly by the… Continue reading The Tango Player →. 1. I’m often asked for recommendations on East German movies that people should watch. During the 1960s, films like Belgian director Franz Buyens’ excellent yet controversial Deutschland—Endstation Ost (1964) emphasized the GDR’s position on the Berlin Question and on ending its own international isolation. Finally, the DEFA Film Library collection also includes films about avant-garde and underground artistic activity in the GDR, such as La Villette, Counter Images and The Subversive Camera. L’objectif de la DEFA Stiftung est de sauvegarder des films de la DEFA et de les rendre utilisables par le public, ainsi que de promouvoir la culture cinématographique allemande et du septième art en mettant à disposition des moyens de réalisation de projets, des bourses et des prix. Later films, such as Her Third, Solo Sunny and All My Girls, emphasize the search for personal fulfillment in a society that professes gender equality and emancipation, economic independence, professional sovereignty and self-determination for women, even though it is still male-dominated. The themes raised in these films were reworked and reverberated until the end of the GDR, with a last permutation in Heiner Carow’s The Mistake. The GDR Magazine (DDR-Magazin) newsreel series, in production between 1962 and 1980, accounts for roughly half of the total films commissioned by the Foreign Ministry. In 1978, Beyer’s TV movie Geschlossene Gesellschaft , which is about a marital crisis and features stars Jutta Hoffmann and Armin Mueller-Stahl, created a huge stir. A film portrait of one of DEFA's best-known directors. As soon as WWII ended, (East) German directors began addressing the horrific legacy of the Nazis in a wide range of films produced between 1946 and 1988. The fundamental mission of East German animators at the Studio thus changed very little over time. Since this year of retrospection also marks the 75th anniversary of the DEFA, film-producing body of the former GDR, we handpicked some of the best DEFA Foundation movies directed by ours truly; That is, former HFF students! In 1965-66, the abrupt reversal of the cultural thaw deemed possible behind the Wall decimated a young genre of critical films that addressed issues of contemporary life in the GDR (e.g., The Rabbit Is Me, Carla, Just Don’t Think I’ll Cry, Trace of Stones). The East German DEFA Studio contributed to the effort to justify the step with polemical documentaries (Look at This City), as well as more nuanced feature films, such as And Your Love Too and Divided Heaven. The British Film Institute credits DEFA with offering "the most consistent and coherent analysis of fascism of any national cinema." The Stacheltier ("Porcupine") series made between 1953 and 1964 consisted over almost 300 productions. Le DEFA est un diplôme de niveau III. Censorship operated at various levels of the filmmaking process at the DEFA Studios. The WWII films, in contrast, more fully explore the experience of soldiers, while they craft a nuanced portrayal of political pressures on Jews and non-Jews alike. La DEFA consacre ainsi deux films biographiques à la guerre des paysans du XVI e siècle. With that being said, 'Snow White' is one of the best-looking DEFA fairy-tale films. When it was not, films were either censored (see Banned Films above), or they were granted a “limited release,” with very few film prints and little advertising. Less than a year after that first batch of East Germans streamed into West Berlin in their Trabants, the GDR ceased to exist. Strong female roles reflecting socialist gender ideals and policies abound, such as in the filmic foundation myth, Castles and Cottages. Votes: 149. Cette page vous présente les films les plus appréciés de tous les temps selon le public. The genre films drew millions of viewers into movie theaters and became box-office hits. In 1969, DEFA created a special studio called Camera DDR to work with the Foreign Ministry, and over the next 15 years the Foreign Ministry Films saw their heyday. While certain films revisit flashpoints of East Bloc history—such as the unrest following Stalin’s death in 1953 or the Prague Spring of 1968—others assess GDR society, even as it was slipping away. This is a list, in year order, of the most notable films produced in the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany and the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) from 1945 until German Reunification in October 1990.. There’s no one answer to this. Several of DEFA’s most well-known actors and directors got their starts making short films for the Das Stacheltier group. Another strand focuses more on Nazi anti-Semitism and war atrocities, including films by acclaimed German directors, such as Frank Beyer (Jacob the Liar, Naked among Wolves), Kurt Maetzig (Marriage in the Shadows), Wolfgang Staudte (The Murderers Are among Us) and Konrad Wolf (Stars, Professor Mamlock). In contrast to what were broadly included in the definition of antifascist films in the GDR (see above), this theme focuses more narrowly on those films in which there is a strong depiction of the racially motivated crimes of the Nazis against Jews, Roma and Sinti, among others. Experimental forms were seldom employed, as filmmakers at the Dresden Animation Studio wanted to avoid being accused of formalism, which officials understood as an overemphasis of form over content and an antithesis to socialist realism. Here’s a look at the group, the films, and the people who made them. Tous les points de tous les Tops 10 sont ensuite agrégés et le résultat se trouve sous vos yeux, sous la forme d'un Top 100. Most of these cases involved individual titles (see Censorship below). Censorship operated at various levels of the filmmaking process at the DEFA Studios. Elle a aussi réalisé le doublage d'environ 8 000 films. Difficile à obtenir, il prépare aux métiers de cadre de l'animation: gestion d'équipement, conduite de projets, mise en oeuvre d'intervention etc. Despite their modest number, science fiction films made at the DEFA Film Studios offer many insights—into East German film-watching public, the socialist imagination, and the integration of ideology and visual effects—which make DEFA’s contributions to the science fiction genre integral to GDR pop culture from the late 1950s to the fall of the Berlin Wall. These short films provide an example of the lively cabaret-style tradition of social and political satire that existed in East Germany. There were nevertheless recurrent cases of outright censorship and banning of films. A really good movie that shows the true face and the realities of Socialism in Germany, it was much better than its now.. 2. In other films, such as A Berlin Romance, women are portrayed as susceptible to the consumer attractions of the West, but also the site of conscience and moral action, as in The Murderers Are among Us and Destinies of Women. Starting in the early 1980s, a new group of directors started lobbying for an autonomous, alternative studio within DEFA. If you’ve read more than a couple of the articles on this blog, you’ll have come across the … German film artists and technicians who had spent the War in exile were joined by others who had survived within Germany to found the DEFA Studio in May 1946. — Sylvia Klötzer, cultural historian. You’re in a constant fight against the elements and there’s no end to the maintenance. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. A key film in this collection is the groundbreaking 1988 documentary Winter Adé, in which women of different ages and backgrounds openly discuss their lives and question the official image of women in the GDR. This theme combines films about authors or the theater—for example, Fallada: The Last Chapter, The Actress, Marriage in the Shadows—and literary adaptations. In East Germany, antifascism thus primarily referred to anti-Nazi resistance activities. The state owned East German film company DEFA produced about 800 feature films between 1946 and 1992. DEFA was the state owned film company of the GDR. This collection focuses on the First and Second World Wars from a leftwing German perspective. The script was written by Wolfgang Kohlhaase with a score composed by Günter Klück. A few were shelved, but it was was usually for political reasons rather than the film’s style.… Continue reading Miraculi →, The final years of East Germany’s existence saw a relaxing of the restrictions on what could be filmed and what couldn’t. The studio and its directors explicitly sought to make a clean break with Nazi filmmaking, for example by reviving Weimar-era styles and techniques. They explore connections between the wars involving Germany from 1871 to 1945 and seek to untangle the precedents of the Second World War, which was the primary formative experience of the East Germany policy. DEFA’s so-called “Red Westerns” sought to tell well-researched stories about the American West from the point of view of the Native Americans, in which exploitative US settlers and the cavalry—the capitalists—were most often the bad guys. From UFA to DEFA: Soon after the end of WWII, the Ufa studios in Potsdam-Babelsberg—the center of German filmmaking throughout the Weimar and Nazi periods—became DEFA: the Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft (or German Film Company). We, Danae & Max, students of the Film Cultural Heritage department, are happy to present you the 2021 Sehsüchte Retrospektive. Beginning in 1963, Rolf Losansky directed over 20 films for children and teenagers, many of which are still considered classics today. Ces films sont ce qui se fait de mieux en termes de cinéma selon le public. East German films addressing this topic fall into one of several categories. "The series of Stacheltiere shows the modest glory and tragedy of domestic political satire in a public sphere under party control." Most of the over 40 short films feature popular music groups of the time. Political Experiments, Rebel Youth and Civil Unrest —. The DEFA Studio prioritized films to help establish the legitimacy of the East German state (Castles and Cottages) and its relationship to the West (A Berlin Romance, The Story of a Young Couple, Berlin–Schönhauser Corner). Literally, this just means crime film, but the Krimi is much more than that. It was produced by the DEFA film company. Best known among them is director Jürgen Böttcher, who also paints under the name Strawalde. Those who remained nevertheless created exceptional films, such as the box-office hit All My Girls, the campy Bailing Out, and the beautifully poetic The Women and the Stranger. Gaben ... See full summary » Directors: Iván Kapitány, Péter Rudolf | Stars: Péter Rudolf, Gábor Reviczky, Imre … Some films made at the DEFA Studio contributed to the effort to justify this step, for example, the vividly polemical documentary Look at This City; in contrast, other films made in the early 1960s offered a more nuanced view of its impact on East Germans, including the feature films And Your Love Too and Divided Heaven. Because there are not many discussions or representations of religion in DEFA films, the exceptions are of particular interest. Awarded! Germany's DEFA film studios were shut down after German reunification. A film about living and working conditions in the GDR of the 60's. These treatments, however, abided by the ban on actually showing the Wall in films. After a crime is committed during the Nazi era in the Reeperbahn area of Hamburg, the aspiring local leader, a ship owner, needs to find an executioner to kill the perpetrators and turns to a butcher. The history of Berlin in the 20th century is unlike that of any other city: during the Weimar Republic period in the “Golden ‘20s” it was a world center of modernism; with the Nazi take-over in 1933, it became the capital of Hitler's Third Reich; after WWII, virtually destroyed by war, the Iron Curtain of the Cold War was drawn through it, and the Wall was built in 1961; finally, in 1989 the East German democracy movement led to the fall of the Wall and the unification of East and West Germany. It is beautifully photographed with lots of rich colour and a lot of effort went into the sets and costumes, more so than most DEFA fairy-tale adaptations. Eastern German spy films often exhibit an attempt to ideologically counteract and economically compete with similar entertainment films and television from the West. De 1946 à 1990, la DEFA a produit environ 700 longs-métrages, 750 films d'animation et 2 250 films documentaires et courts-métrages. It is therefore no wonder that the Wall itself figures prominently in films made after this restriction was lifted in 1989, including The Architects, The Wall, Jana and Jan and Latest from the Da-Da-R. Here’s a look at the group, the films, and the people who made them. The role of the dramaturge was to help filmmakers develop scripts and films; at times this also involved helping them negotiate the demands of the administration and approval boards. The pioneers of DEFA’s first generation include Slatan Dudow (Destinies of Women), Falk Harnack (The Axe of Wandsbek), Georg C. Klaren (Wozzeck), Gerhard Lamprecht (Somewhere in Berlin), Kurt Maetzig (Marriage in the Shadows, Council of the Gods) and Wolfgang Staudte (The Murderers Are among Us), among others. Finally, the DEFA Film Library collection also includes films about avant-garde and underground artistic activity in the GDR, such as ... (Berlin International Film Festival), and Jacob the Liar became the only DEFA film ever nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. On May 16, 1946 the founding of the DEFA Studio in the Soviet Occupation Zone got official approval. Germany has given the world plenty of great films and filmmakers, but their greatest contribution to genre cinema is the Krimifilm. Although avant-garde artistic forms were frowned upon by officials in the GDR, some artists and filmmakers nevertheless succeeded in creating artworks in this vein. Many focused on the experience of women—at work, with children, in love—and their longing for fulfillment: Too Young for Love, Until Death Do Us Part, and the box-office hit The Legend of Paul and Paula. East German Films from Behind the Wall gathers major award-winning films from the GDR into one series for the first time. These segments, lasting approximately 1-3 minutes each, featured national and international news, as well as cultural and special interest stories. Also widely adapted were works by authors forced to flee from the Nazis—Arnold Zweig (The Axe of Wandsbek) and Friedrich Wolf (Professor Mamlock)—and acclaimed novels by East German authors, such as Christa Wolf (Divided Heaven), Jurek Becker (Jacob the Liar) and Christoph Hein (The Tango Player). Premiere 2013 Gene Siskel Film Center Chicago IL Awarded! In most cases, such behind-the-scenes work was successful. The story has all the … Most of the films in the DEFA Film Library collection.