DEFA to showcase East German films

Starting Nov. 14, the IU DEFA Project will present DEFA Dialogues, a series of five film screenings and discussions. These films, however, are not ordinary films. In fact, many of them were thought to be lost after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and they focus on East Germany, a country that no longer exists.

Before the fall of the Wall, East German filmmakers were up against imposing control from the government.

“The films at that period were funded by the state, so the government had a significant role in how the films were made,” said Brigitta Wagner, the director of the 2010 DEFA Project and an assistant professor in the Germanic studies and cinema, communications and culture and film studies departments. “The East German directors didn’t have as much creative freedom, so they would use coded references to get their messages beyond the authorities.”

After the collapse of the Wall, the East German citizens realized they were no longer confined to East German films — they could watch whatever they wanted.

“The films made in the East tackled difficult subjects,” Wagner said. “The people didn’t want to watch films about how difficult life was like in East Germany; they wanted to put that behind them.”

Thus, the status of the East German filmmakers fell, and their films were lost.
“But now, 20 years after the Cold War ended, their stories have become much more interesting,” Wagner said.

The DEFA Foundation in Berlin is charged by the German government to protect and preserve the films of DEFA, the former East German film studios before and immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The only DEFA Film Library outside of Europe is located at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

However, last spring, Wagner created the IU DEFA Project, a group that works to showcase DEFA’s films.

“I just thought, ‘Let’s be one of those campuses that does something with these films,’” Wagner said. “Let’s make these recovered films relevant to young people and to the Bloomington community and anticipate this new cinema with films that no one has ever seen before.”

IU DEFA member graduate student Jan Steele said the best part about the spring film screenings was that they attracted a wide variety of attendees.

This fall, the Project is moving on to DEFA Dialogues, a presentation of five specially selected films. Three of the screenings will feature special guests and all of them will include a discussion of the film after the screening.

“As one of the first series co-presented by the IU Cinema, DEFA Dialogues will give audiences a first taste of a different kind of movie-going experience,” Steele said.
To select the films, Wagner met with Helmut Morsbach, the head of the DEFA Foundation in Berlin, and asked him which films would be particularly interesting and different to show.

Of the films he offered her, Wagner selected “Locked Up Time” (1990), “Carbide and Sorrel” (1963), “Vorspiel” (1987), “Windows on Monday” (2006) and “Sammelsurium” (1992).

The films, whose topics range from the activities of the East German Stasi secret police to the experiences of being young in East Germany, will each be shown on campus in mid-November and early December.

The screenings are free and open to the public, and all of the films will be accompanied by English subtitles. Although three of the films were already subtitled before the series was set into motion, “Vorspiel” and “Sammelsurium” have been subtitled especially for the IU DEFA Project based on the request of Indiana’s high school students who took part in the Project’s student symposium last spring.

“The fact that these two films have been subtitled for us is especially exciting,” Wagner said. “Now, these films will be released in the U.S. and will be more available for the English-speaking audience, and these are films that almost no one has ever seen before. That’s special, that’s really special.”

Wagner said not only is it exciting to see films that have rarely been seen before, but there is particular intrigue in the fact that they come from a country that no longer exists.

“Austria is still Austria; Poland is still Poland; East Germany is not still East Germany,” Wagner said. “Thousands of films are made every year, but now and then, it’s important to look at cinematic history during a time that had a change that came so quickly. It’s easy to forget what they were thinking at the time and what the future looked like for them.”

Even though DEFA Dialogues invites everyone to see the screenings, Wagner said younger people should take a special interest in the series.

“Students and teens these days were born in the late ’80s and early ’90s when the Cold War ended, the Berlin Wall fell and German unification began,” Wagner said.

“They might not know so much about the time in which they were born, and this is a great opportunity to see what was going on in the world at that time. It’s important to be aware, and there’s nothing better than meeting the people who lived through it.”

‘Locked up time’ (1990) 
WHEN 3 p.m. Nov. 14
WHERE Whittenberger Auditorium
Helmut Morsbach, the head of the DEFA Foundation in Berlin, will introduce the film and lead a Q&A session after the screening.
“Locked Up Time” was created by a female filmmaker named Sybille Schönemann who was locked up by the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police.
“I think many people became strangely fascinated by the activities of the East German Stasi secret police when they saw the Oscar-winning 2006 German movie ‘The Lives of Others,’” IU DEFA member graduate student Jan Steele said. “For me, that fiction film raised a lot of questions, and I’m eager to watch the 1990 documentary ‘Locked Up Time’ to see another perspective and perhaps a more realistic glimpse of someone coming to terms with why the secret police arrested and imprisoned her.”

‘Carbide and Sorrel’ (1963)
WHEN 7 p.m. Nov. 15
WHERE Fine Arts Auditorium
This film was included in the series at the suggestion of filmmaker Peter Kahane and film critic, writer and radio figure Knut Elstermann, who both said this film got under their skin and made them want to work in cinema. Kahane and Elstermann will lead a discussion following the screening.

‘Vorspiel’ (1987)
WHEN 7 p.m. Nov. 16
WHERE Fine Arts Auditorium
Elstermann will lead an interview with filmmaker Kahane after the screening. This is a film that focuses on the youth in East Germany.
“If you fondly remember the chaos that ensued when you had a crush on someone and would do anything to get that person’s attention, you won’t want to miss Vorspiel,” Steele said.
As playful as it might seem, Wagner said the youth is depicted in a strikingly honest way.
“They’re frustrated with their lives. They have dreams, and they love,” said Brigitta Wagner, the director of the 2010 DEFA Project. “There’s vulnerability in the film that youth everywhere can relate to.”

‘Windows on Monday’ (2006) and ‘Sammelsurium’ (1992)
WHEN 7 p.m. Dec. 1 and 2
WHERE Fine Arts Auditorium
Both films came out of the production company, the Berlin School, which showcases a new movement of filmmaking that harbors the younger, more contemporary filmmakers of East Germany.
“A lot of the films that come out of the Berlin School focus on life in the city or suburbs and family,”  Wagner said. “They’re made in a dark way but with an artistic sensibility.”
Members of IU’s German Studies will lead a discussion following the films.