Discoveries from East Germany World Cinema

East German short film directed by Andrea Ritterbusch

Training for tank drivers in training. The techniques for overcoming obstacles and driving through restricted passageways are taught.

On the necessity of safety measures on the workplace.

Scenes of everyday life in South Africa which give an idea of the daily racism in this country.

This portrait of East German sculptor and graphic artist Fritz Cremer (1906-1993) shows the artist at work in his studio and some of his art works, including sculptures for his Buchenwald Memorial. It accompanies the images with a text by Bertolt Brecht, read by actor Wolfgang Heinz of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

In a children's room, dolls and animals are looking at a picture book. Fips the monkey wants to have it all to himself. The dolls look for another toy. Fips takes it away from them. Now the dolls are busy playing skittles and won't let the troublemaker join in. But they soon feel sorry for him. As he promises to mend his ways, he is allowed to play again.

The chairwoman of the LPG "Gebrüder Grimm", Mrs. Holle, is pleased to have gained two new workers: Maria Gold and Maria Pech. The two have very different working styles. Maria Gold listens to the first call of the oven and the apple tree and goes about her work so carefully and skillfully that she only produces quality goods. Maria Pech, on the other hand, delivers charred bread and her apples are good for the jam factory at best.

Sculptor Makolies is filmed working on a sculpture in the middle of a quarry in Swiss Saxony. The quarry workers go about their work around him. Both the work in the quarry and the work on the large figure in sandstone require strenght and conscientiousness. This film observers both types of work, without comparing them.

A black-and-white documentary film about the large housing estate "Lütten Klein" in the northwest of Rostock in June 1968. On the basis of the construction worker and shop steward Hans Schmidt, the efforts to fulfil the plan are clearly shown, even if the supplies and weather conditions are not optimal. The group meeting of the construction brigade shown here describes, among other things, the hardships and disappointments of some of the workers on the construction site. On the other hand, the construction management and shop steward Schmidt try to motivate the workers to achieve even higher performance by demanding competition and obligations.

Short film about General Eduardo Cano, who after the military coup became director of the Chilean central bank in the Pinochet dictatorship. Cano withdraws money from the circulation, which were described by opposition parties with resistance piles. From the Chile cycle by Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann.

A black-and-white children’s film follows class 6b during their autumn holidays. After a fun test drive with a new electric locomotive, they help Master Sellm build his house. They plan to build a paddling pool but struggle to find pipes. Discovering pipes in an old house, they also find stolen motorcycles. With help from the People’s Police and the godparent brigade, they lay the pipes and learn about foreign property and reporting stolen goods.

Experienced shunters working at the Dresden-Friedrichstadt goods yard. In all weathers, day and night, they couple and uncouple the wagons. The air is full of sound: hammering, steps crunching on the gravel, whistles and shunting noises.

A duke tries to use force to collect the taxes of his peasants for the second time. The peasants want to defend themselves against this.

"I'm walking through my city...", sings a cheerful pop singer. She fervently praises the new metropolis of East Berlin. As an emphatically lively, often anthemically condensed revue, the film tells of the "growth and development of our new capital". Accompanied by cheerful music, the camera indulges in high-altitude views, shows squares whose fountains, benches and green spaces are designed to make you forget that you are in a big city, as well as visitors from all over the world in top hotels. An emphatically cheerful, yet meaningful insight into the brave new GDR world.

Short film about the naval training in the GDR.

East Berlin disco movie.

The count, an evil robber baron, appropriates the last of his peasants' cows. Till Eulenspiegel hires himself out as a tower blower to the wild journeyman and causes the count and his cronies to blindly leave the castle by raising a false alarm.

Chicken Gock and the clever mice want to make music, but they get into an argument over a note.

Mr. Meier, tired of his monotonous work, longs to be a hippopotamus. He feels like one and this causes him to clash with his environment. So he decides to return to normal human life. Secretly, however, he does not give up his wish. One day, when he comes close to a river, the transformation takes place.

Documentary on Annette Paduck's literature circle “ Schreibende Schüler”.

A black-and-white children’s film follows class 6b during their autumn holidays. After a fun test drive with a new electric locomotive, they help Master Sellm build his house. They plan to build a paddling pool but struggle to find pipes. Discovering pipes in an old house, they also find stolen motorcycles. With help from the People’s Police and the godparent brigade, they lay the pipes and learn about foreign property and reporting stolen goods.

Documentary short to propagate the positive effects of labour protection laws.

A duke tries to use force to collect the taxes of his peasants for the second time. The peasants want to defend themselves against this.

A creative and skilful montage as well as dramatically spot-on sound and music effects are combined in a snappy plot to offer a mordant commentary on the constitutionally enshrined equality of men and women in the GDR. The film was awarded a medal at the 1982 congress of UNICA, the Union Internationale du Cinéma, in Aachen.

Angela Davis visited the GDR in late summer 1972. For months, people all over the world had fought for her release. In Berlin, Leipzig, and Magdeburg, children were able to see Angela Davis, talk to her, and present her with flowers and gifts.

The “Raging Reporter” Egon Erwin Kisch (1885-1948) was one of the most significant journalists of the 1920s and 30s. He wrote from a communist point of view, in language that sparkled with humor. Historic photographs and footage describe Kisch’s eventful journalistic and political life, which brought him to important cities including Berlin, Moscow, Sydney, and New York.

Chicken Gock and the clever mice want to make music, but they get into an argument over a note.

Otto, the master of the house, behaves in an exemplary manner. He washes, cooks, does housework, gives presents to his wife, in short, he does everything to make her life as comfortable as possible. But when the clock strikes midnight, that is, March 8 is over, he falls into bed and considers his task fulfilled for a year.

Presentation of the economic upswing in the GDR, emphasizing the discovery of the process for the production of high-temperature lignite coke and the commissioning of the Lauchhammer large-scale coking plant.

East German short film

Short documentary

Nine peasant woodcarvers from Poland, their works, their thoughts, and the unexpected elements in each personal view. They draw their themes from biblical characters, the day-to-day pleasures and labours of village life, their historical heritage, but also Auschwitz and the devil next-door. Existential difficulties pose challenges. Lending them form is a way to master them, to constrain them within an image.

This portrait shows Black cartoonist Oliver Harrington from New York, who fled to the GDR. For his political drawings, he drew on worldly anecdotes and his love of storytelling. Director Hans Hattop later taught videography at the University of Film and Television.

Presentation of a commited State Party secretary at the Chemicals Combine in Buna. A former miner and small farmer rises to a leading political position.

From the union of different characters, bizarre mythical creatures finally populate the screen.

The first puppet animation film in the GDR shows the fairy tale about the quarrels of an unequal pair of animals, which is well-known in both German and Sorbian.

A foray through the Sorbian customs of central Lusatia, made in the GDR. This classic work of documentary filmmaking covers the course of a year, in the process elaborating on village architecture, furniture, costumes, handicrafts, legends and oral traditions, as well as significant customs such as Zapust and the gift giving child.

A guide to vegetable self-sufficiency in postwar Germany.

A film using the famous stop-motion technique well known from the Sandmännchen. It's based on a Sorbic tale of young Hanka who lives in a village. She is very beautiful and does not work. Secretly in love with Jan, she turns down all other men trying to marry her. Jan, however, is poor, so she turns him down. Jan asks the Water Spirit for help. The spirit proposes to Jana but then shows her that Jan is the right guy for her.

'Traumlos?' sheds light on future plans of three teenagers and young adults in a Brandenburg village. Realized shortly before the fall of the Wall, the film also captures the fears and hopes of young people in the last year of the GDR

Three international students write letters home about their time in East Germany. Antonio Dega, a Cuban studying shipbuilding, writes home about the beauty of the Baltic Sea and studying in German. Julienne, from Togo, praises the training she is receiving in midwifery in Dresden. Mohammed Kasim, an Iraqi in Berlin, builds television sets for sale in the GDR.

Grand Central Station, New York - the town's landmark. The camera captures impressions within 24 hours.

Holidays in colony (in Thuringia and on the Baltic) of the children of workers of a chemical industry in the DDR.

When the Nazis took power, the Jewish artist Leo Haas (1901-1983) was arrested in his Czechoslovakian hometown. He spent the next six years in different concentration camps and became known for the paintings he did in the Theresienstadt camp. This film presents Haas as a political artist and resistance fighter and celebrates him as a socialist caricaturist dedicated to the GDR.

Three military drivers are introduced. They bear a special responsibility in their collective and often fulfill a dual function.

Educational short film about the solar eclipse

With ZUG UM ZUG Barthel creates an amusing as well as bitingly macabre image-sound collage about the negative effects of smoking.

The life stories of four people struggling with alcohol addiction allow for conversations about the apparent "normalcy" of alcohol and the subsequent difficulty of recognizing it as a potentially dangerous drug. The documentary stresses that alcoholism is a disease which must be treated medically and socially. Instead of turning a blind eye to others' problems, it is important to realize that people of all ages, genders, and social backgrounds can potentially be affected and that both the individual and society share responsibility for preventing relapse to alcohol abuse.

A biographical documentary about Ernst Thälmann.