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DEFA-Studio für Wochenschau und Dokumentarfilme
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location_onJohannisthal, BerlinpublicDE
Unsere bösen Kinder 1993
A film about five street children; children who have had to grow up too soon. The footage was shot at Christmas 1992, in Berlin. Claudia, 13, wants to show her mother "that kids can do what they want". 13-year-old Danny thinks Germany’s lousy, having lived on the streets for two years. His mother doesn’t try to contact him any more. Jonas, 13, is convinced that a bright future lies ahead of him. He shifts between his parents’ house and the streets, but feels most at home in a street riot. 13-year-old Daniela doesn’t want to leave home, despite suffering at the violent hands of her father. We meet her in a women’s refuge centre. David, 13, shows the director, his father, first-hand what street children go through and the pain they inflict upon their parents.
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Neues in Wittstock 1992
Sixth Wittstock film.
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Kurt - You Shall Laugh 1992
Kurt Wans(z)ki has spent his life in psychatric clinics. He is diagnosed as: retarded to the level of early childhood, incapable of learning. Free from all pressure he has constructed a world of himself in the clinic. A survivor, musican and painter in the streets of East-Berlin. The Film questions the conventional concepts of „normaly“.
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Strictly Propaganda 1992    star_border 6.2
A realistic satire about the path of the German Democratic Republic from its foundation until its 40th birthday. This eye-opening film tells the history of the German Democratic Republic through East Germany's official newsreels and state films.
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Iron Age 1991    star_border 4.6
Ten years after breaking off the film "Anka and ..." nearly all the protagonists of that time have disappeared. Mario and Tilo hung themselves in the final phase of the GDR, Frank is surviving in West Berlin addicted to drugs, and Karsten is doing pretty well there. Anka, however, who once was in love with each of them, lives alone with her danghter in Eisenhüttenstadt. A film about normality in life.
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Der gordische Knoten 1991
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Eastern Landscape 1991
Articles of former East Germany from household items to flags are thrown away at a garbage dump outside of East Berlin, serving as a reminder of a state that no longer exists. In this gesture of breaking ties with the past, the film captures the dumping ground as the last burial site of a society and the absurdity of time and existence.
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Im Übergang – Protokoll einer Hoffnung 1991
Once again Kurt Tetzlaff portrays Alexander, who in 1990 works as a nurse and is active in the “Action Reconciliation”. The sense of departure of the autumn of 1989 slowly gives way to disappointments about the outcome of the People’s Chamber elections in 1990, the currency reform and the Unification Treaty. The political and social changes took place at a rapid pace that many found hard to follow. The sense of community that carried people through 1989 is fading. “Now it’s every man for himself”, Alexander states. He has no use for capitalism: “I feel just as lied to and cheated as before.” Resignation spreads.
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March Brandenburg, Inc. 1991
In late 1990 times are changing in Zehdenick, Brandenburg: Russian troops are leaving, the German Reunification brings euphoria and new hope, but unemployment rises steadily.
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It'll Be Okay 1991
Director Bernd Sahling documents almost four years in the life of a young man who experienced two political systems, East and West Germany, and cannot fulfill his dreams in either of them.
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Last Year Titanic 1991    star_border 5.7
Director Andreas Voigt interviewed people of different ages and social backgrounds about their experiences after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He paints an important picture of this historic period in German history, filled with radical social and economic change and insecurity. Last Year Titanic was shot from December 1989 through December 1990 — the last months of the GDR and the first months in united Germany.
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Bulky Trash 1991
In early summer 1989, Helke Misselwitz portrays young musicians in a band who produce their music on other people’s waste items. The four boys call themselves "Bulk Rubbish" and they drum out their resentment, having grown up on the new housing estates of East Berlin. A straight-up picture of the GDR youth is presented here, which in no way conforms to the official image. The film crew concentrates on the observation of the boy Enrico and his mother Erika: when the mother marries in the West, her son decides to stay in East Berlin, bidding her farewell at the border-crossing. Only shortly after, the tables are turned again: as the events in Berlin leading up to the fall of the Wall are practically captured live from the film crew, Enrico insists on maintaining his cultural identity, even after the fall of the Wall. The "Bulk Rubbish" musicians want to remain citizens of their own state and perceive the looming reunification with scepticism.
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Berlin - Prenzlauer Berg 1991    star_border 6
The Prenzlauer Berg district in the former East Berlin was a particularly intense example of the "short summer of anarchy" on the heels of the fall of the Wall. This merry, teary swan song is a pastiche of dancing seniors, revelling bohemians, transvestites from the West, and Balkan musicians. On a more serious note, we hear from women in positions of responsibility – workers at a state-run textile factory, as well as the owner of a clothing store fear for their financial future, while the lady boss at Konnopke's snack bar eagerly accepts her first payment in West German marks.
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Wer sind wir? Deutsche in Sibirien 1990 1991
Documentary film.
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Time Loops - A Conversation with Christa Wolf 1991    star_border 8
Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.
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City-Sleeper 1991
Homelessness in New York. Interviews with those affected. An architect from San Francisco comes up with the idea of building the so-called "City Sleeper" - a housing container. Couldn't the City Sleeper also be used for the homeless of the Federal Republic of Germany?
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Walter Hunger - A German Résumé 1991
Portrait of the industrialist Walter Hunger from Frankenberg in Saxony. He left the German Democratic Republic in 1958 with his family and closest colleagues to build up one the most significant hydraulics enterprises in the Federal Republic of Germany.
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Komm in den Garten 1990    star_border 3
A portrait of three friends from the GDR. Dieter, a painter, spent ten years in prison on account of his "aversion to work". Alfred, promoted to the position of deputy executive editor, ends up in prison and receiving psychiatric help as a result of a catch-22 situation involving protests and alcoholism. Michael, who had studied foreign trade in Moscow, was kicked out of the Academy and now earns a living crafting lamps.
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Wir bleiben hier 1990
Observations in a Vietnamese family after the Berlin Wall fell. Which problems and expectations resulted in their changed daily life? - They, who were once a sought-after work force in this country.
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Woe to the Vanquished – The Workers’ Uprising, 17 June 1953 1990
“17 June 1990, East Berlin. The GDR will exist for another three months. No more time to commemorate all those who stood up in ’53, showed civil courage and were vanquished. This film is dedicated to them.” This is what we hear from offscreen as the film opens, to images of a rally for the victims of 17 June.
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