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Short film about the GDR state border
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A punk documentary about the life and death of the GDR punk Dieter "Otze" Ehrlich and his band Schleimkeim aus dem Schweinestall. With the fall of the Wall, Otze loses not only his enemy images, but also his life at the price of freedom.
In a world divided by the Iron Curtain, East Germany sought to carve its niche in the technological race. Enter "Robotron" - a name that seamlessly blended "robot" and "electronics." This wasn't just a brand; it was an ambitious answer to the West's technological advancements, a testament to the GDR’s drive to match, if not surpass, Western innovation. Drawing inspiration from the corporate giants of the West, the GDR‘s government merged various businesses to form this tech behemoth. With 16 major hubs in Central Germany alone, it was clear: "Robotron" was to be the DDR's technological crown jewel. But what was the Socialist Unity Party (SED), the GDR's ruling party, envisioning with this grand venture? How did "Robotron" navigate the challenges of operating within a socialist planned economy, while striving for global excellence? And as it grew to dominate East Germany's tech landscape, why did it always seem to be one step behind the leading global tech powers?
The army of the GDR, called NVA had not survived the reunification of Germany, it was completely absorbed by the Bundeswehr and scrapped subsequently. But what apparently went on so smoothly as a peaceful unification of hostile brothers quietly left deep scars in the East German landscape.
In the 1960s, a white couple living in East Germany tells their dark-skinned child that her skin color is merely a coincidence. As a teenager, she accidentally discovers the truth. Years before, a group of African men came to study in a village nearby. Sigrid, an East German woman, fell in love with Lucien from Togo and became pregnant. But she was already married to Armin. The child is Togolese-East German filmmaker Ines Johnson-Spain. In interviews with Armin and others from her childhood years, she tracks the astonishing strategies of denial her parents, striving for normality, developed following her birth. What sounds like fieldwork about social dislocation becomes an autobiographical essay film and a reflection on themes such as identity, social norms and family ties, viewed from a very personal perspective.
Siegfried "Siggi" Trzoß, a radio moderator from East Berlin, is working tirelessly leading up to his anniversary and 900th show. The music his heart burns for is East German Schlager, a genre politically ignored at first and widely forgotten now. But Siggi keeps the dream alive to this day, making the hearts of seniors jump higher in nostalgia all over east Germany.
The viewpoints of women from a country that no longer exists preserved on low-band U-matic tape. GDR-FRG. Courageous, self-confident and emancipated: female industry workers talk about gaining autonomy.
Alice and Horst paints a moving portrait of two siblings from Saarbrücken whose lives were shaped by their family’s antifascist resistance. As children, Alice Hornung and Horst Bernard were forced to flee from the Nazis into exile in France, where, despite constant danger, they also experienced great solidarity. After their return they continued their parents’ political commitment: against fascism, for peace and disarmament. The film combines personal memories with rare archival footage and portrays two individuals who, well into old age, remain unwavering in their commitment to justice and remembrance.
Short film about astronauts in the GDR
Erich Honecker visits the Republic of Zambia
Born in Germany in 2002, Noa Blanche Beschorner evokes the memory of those who, a generation before her, lived through the separation of East and West Germany. Tapetenwechsel (Change of Scenery) is the story of youth seeking their identity when confronting their collective memory.
The “Bowlingtreff” is a bowling alley situated right in the centre of Leipzig opened in July 1987. At that time the quality of life in Leipzig and the whole GDR got worse. Houses collapsed because of poor conditions, public life and amusement was on a very low level. The “Bowlingtreff” was not merely an urban entertainment centre but a revolution in those days. Built with the help of hundreds of volunteers without permission of the state authorities in Berlin the building expresses a free and international architecture known as postmodernism. It is an architecture that was never seen before in Leipzig. Marble and parquet on the floor, a glass roof and beautiful pink pillars. The atmosphere was western as time witnesses remember it.
Erich Honecker ruled the GDR for 18 years. His fall in 1989 heralded the downfall of the state that had called itself "the better Germany" for 40 years. Nazi victim and autocrat, bourgeois and power-conscious: Honecker was an ideological hardliner who coordinated the construction of the Wall in 1961 and whose regime was known as an unjust state for Wall deaths, firing orders, the Stasi and forced adoptions. In the wake of the fall of communism, the former model socialist fell into homelessness and found himself on the run in his own country. Suffering from cancer, he managed to evade responsibility before a court by emigrating to Chile, where he died in 1994. This gripping documentary portrays the rise and fall of this contradictory German politician with an impressive array of top-class international and national contemporary witnesses. Erich Honecker would have been 100 years old on August 25, 2012.
A film on the surveillance and the control in East Germany also speaks about it - representing extreme and almost unbelievable image of a society which has acquired one super-narrative and developed a system which makes it impossible to even speak about the possibility of anything outside it.
Interview with Jochen Girke, a retired East German Stasi agent, filmed March, 1990 to June, 1991. Questions explore his study of psychology for use as a filmmaker and trainer of interrogators and informers. Segments include conversations with his parents, teacher, former girlfriend and wife.
This color documentary tells the story of the "Mamais." In 1960, a group of workers at the Bitterfeld chemical plant set themselves the task of becoming the first "socialist brigade" in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to act in accordance with the slogan "Work, learn, and live socialist."
Nine very private encounters with different people of the post-war generation and their memories of childhood and youth. Among others, the guitarist and singer Peter "Caesar" Gläser and the actress Christine Harbort. Roland Steiner asked his contemporaries about - "What we remember ...". All interviewees are as old as the state they live in. Nine CVs from the GDR are described. They have different professions, from skilled worker and scientist, nurse and saleswoman, actress or rock musician, even a minstrel is included. They remember what shaped them: Family, school, birthdays and hot summers, the happy moments and their own failures.
