Change of Scenery

From Us To Me / Vom Wir zum Ich

November 1988 •German

This first co-production between the GDR and Great Britain is intended to contribute to an understanding of the situation and attitudes of millions of working people in opposing social orders. Using the example of shipyard workers, fishermen, the brigade and family of a trade union active cook and unemployed person of various ages and professions in Newcastle on the one hand and a brigade of crane operators of the Warnowwerft and fishermen of the Warnemünde cooperative on the other hand, insights into the way of life and attitudes of people of our time are to be conveyed.

Die Zeit meines Lebens - Dirty Dancing in Ost und West

July 2022 •German

Comrade Couture

February 2009 •German

This film undertakes a journey into the amazing parallel universe of East Berlin’s fashion designers and experts in the art of survival. For, in the midst of the constraints of life in the GDR, there existed a fantasy world where it was possible to dance to another tune, be individual and even provocative. The most important characteristic of this bohemian scene was one’s per- sonal style. But this certainly wasn’t something that could be bought off the peg in the GDR. In this parallel universe it was up to you to create your own individual image – with your own hands. This film tells the story of the desires, the passion and the dreams that were tried and tested, lived and performed in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

Becoming Black

October 2019 •German

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.

Dragan Wende - West Berlin

November 2014 •German

Dragan Wende has lived in Berlin since the '70s and has seen the city change through the years. His nephew comes to live with him as Dragan remembers the better days he lived as a Yugoslavian immigrant in a divided city.

Kalter Krieg der Konzerte - Wie Bruce Springsteen den Osten rockte

November 2013 •German

The Last Summer of the GDR: Freedom and Anarchy

November 2024 •German

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, citizens of East Germany had to get used to a new way of consuming, working, and living. New-found freedoms were a breath of fresh air for many but in the chaos leading up to reunification with West Germany, the experience was also disconcerting.

Karl Marx und seine Erben

April 2018 •German

Pride & Attitude

October 2025 •German

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.

Nazi-Karrieren in der DDR?

November 2016 •German

It was a foundational myth of the GDR that it was anti-fascist and free of Nazis. But was that really the case? The film takes a critical look on the actual way the brown heritage was dealt with in the GDR.

Stasi, un État contre son peuple

October 2021 •French

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, thousands of documents were hastily shredded by the dreaded GDR political police. 16,000 bags filled with six million pieces of paper were found. Thanks to the meticulous work of technology, the destinies of men and women who had been spied on and recorded without their knowledge could be reconstructed.

East German Schlager is dead. Long live the East German Schlager!

December 2023 •German

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.

Erich Mielke - Master of Fear

November 2015 •German

Docudrama about life, career and breakdown of Erich Mielke, the former Security chief of East Germany.

DDR - die entsorgte Republik

October 2019 •German

Uferfrauen - Lesbian Life and Love in the GDR

September 2020 •German

Portraits six lesbian protagonists from rural and metropolitan parts of the formerly socialist Republic and has them tell their captivating and sometimes outrageous life stories.

Out in East Berlin: Lesbians and Gays in the GDR

October 2013 •German

Paragraph 175, which made homosexual behavior punishable by law, was abolished in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1968. At that time, heterosexual nuclear families constituted the center of socialist society, and homosexuality was considered a peripheral issue in the GDR. Out in East Berlin —Lesbians & Gays in the GDR tells the impressive-to-absurd personal histories of gay men and lesbians in the GDR, from the post WWII years until the fall of the Berlin Wall.

whisper & SHOUT

October 1988 •German

Documents important parts of the East German rock music scene of the late 1980s, from well-established bands like Silly, to underground rock bands like Feeling B. This road movie features young people using music to express their take on life, opposition to their parents' generation and opinions on the social and political climate in East Germany. It includes clips from concerts and interviews with fans and members of various bands, such as Feeling B's Christian Lorenz and Paul Landers, now members of Rammstein.

La Brigada – A Mural for the Unidad Popular in Dresden

January 1976 •German

During the 16th Workers' Festival in Dresden in 1976, a student group of Chilean emigrants paints a mural symbolically depicting the activity of the Unidad Popular during Salvador Allende's reign. Festival guests comment on this work. Music by Chilean music group Jaspampa, formed in Leipzig in 1972.

Karl Marx City

January 2017 •German

Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker take a powerfully personal journey through the former East Germany, as Epperlein investigates her father’s 1999 suicide and the possibility that he may have worked as a spy for the dreaded Stasi security service.

Trotz und Treue: Das Phänomen Sahra Wagenknecht

June 2024 •German

2024 is likely to be a decisive year for Sahra Wagenknecht's political future. In the arena of power, she might assume a role that she is already very familiar with. In the early years following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sahra Wagenknecht became the "most famous face" of the PDS, the successor party to the SED. Yet, even as the youngest member of the party's executive board, she was considered a "disruptive factor." She is unyielding and swims against the tide. Sahra Wagenknecht does not distance herself from Stalinism, nor from the Berlin Wall, and wishes for a reformed GDR.