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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.

Tunnel to Freedom

July 2021 •German

13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.

DDR - die entsorgte Republik

October 2019 •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.

Fotoshooting DDR - Bilder zwischen Propaganda und Alltag

October 2024 •German

Life in the GDR was not only documented on behalf of the state, but also by photographic artists and journalists. The documentary goes on a journey through time with some of them and shows little-known aspects of the GDR from its foundation to the fall of the Wall. Photographers in the GDR had a surprising amount of freedom; there was no explicit censorship of images. This allowed them to make visible what the state wanted to hide. This documentary presents two photographers who observed life in the GDR and whose work has been rediscovered in recent years.

In Syrien auf Montage

October 1971 •German

The film is a reportage showing the help of workers from the GDR in the industrial reconstruction of Syria. We witness the friendly relationship between workers from both countries, who are jointly involved in the construction of the cotton spinning mill in Homs. In impressive pictures the exoticism of the environment and the mentality of the Syrian hosts is shown. At the same time it becomes clear that the workers from the GDR become 'ambassadors of the GDR' through their collegial behaviour and good work.

Auf der Oder

April 1970 •German

Documentary reports on the annual icing of the Oder in the 160-kilometer border area between the GDR and the People's Republic of Poland. Icebreakers from both countries with experienced skippers join forces to make the international waterway between Frankfurt and Szczecin navigable again. Everyone works hard as a team and even a broken-down ship cannot stop them from achieving their goal. A look back at the winter of 1947 with its flooding shows what the freezing of the river and the subsequent thaw can do if the ice floes are not drained into the Baltic Sea via Lake Dammsch in good time. The skippers from both countries have known each other for years and trust each other; the camaraderie that has developed on the Oder unites the people, they control the river in winter for the common benefit of all.

Dusk: 1950s East Berlin Bohemia

December 1993 •German

A documentary and film essay about the artist scene in East Berlin during the 1950s.

That's How DEFA Sounded: Film Music from Babelsberg

September 2018 •German

When people think of DEFA, the film heritage of the GDR, they probably don't just think of film images, but also some of the timeless melodies that were created in Babelsberg.

Der Sturz - Honeckers Ende

April 2012 •German

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.

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.

Die sieben Geheimnisse der NVA

November 2018 •German

Erich Mielke - Master of Fear

November 2015 •German

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

Die Mamais

November 1974 •German

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."

Lost Places - Schicksalsorte der deutschen Teilung

October 2019 •German

Something to Do with the Wall

April 1991 •English

In 1986, Ross McElwee (Sherman's March) and Marilyn Levine were making a film about the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall, when the imposing structure was still very much intact as the world’s most visible symbol of hardline Communism and Cold War lore. They thought they were making a documentary on the community of tourists, soldiers, and West Berliners who lived in the seemingly eternal presence of the graffiti emblazoned eyesore. But in 1989, as the original film neared completion, the Wall came down, and McElwee and Levine returned to Berlin, this time to capture the radically different atmosphere of the reunified city.

Dance Dance Documentary

February 2004 •English

In 1999, Konami Corp. introduced a Japanese-influenced coin-operated arcade stand-up to the U.S. It's draw was unheard of for a video game: the combination of music, competition, and interactive video-gameplay along with actual physical activity. Four years later, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) has become one of the most popular game crazes stateside and found easily in video game stores and in nationwide retail markets. This story explores the youth culture surrounding the game and follows a group of devoted players and documents their interactions at various arcades and tournaments.

Schleimkeim - Otze und die DDR von unten

March 2024 •German

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.

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.

Hotel Astoria

October 2020 •German

At Hotel Astoria, the former hotspot of Leipzig, guests were served champagne and turtle soup while the Stasi listened in. Animated memories from times gone by.