DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme

A brief history of the emergence and artistic innovations of tango in 19th-century Argentina and Europe. The film offers a mosaic of tango melodies, art works, dance performances, historical footage, photographs of Buenos Aires at the turn of the 20th century, and texts by Celedonio Flores and Enrique Santos Discépolo.

A film about Jewish cemeteries in East Berlin, based on a screenplay by Günter Kunert, with text by Rabbi Martin Riesenburger. There are shots of gravestones and inscriptions – deported, murdered, perished; in Auschwitz or Theresienstadt. Commentary reminds us of the victims – "in 1933, 160,564 Jewish citizens lived in Berlin; in 1945, 3,500".

Martin Brandt (1903-1989), an unforgettable Jewish actor and former member of the Jewish Kulturbund Theater in Berlin, recites from Macbeth and Nathan the Wise, the play that opened the theater in October 1933. These last filmic images of Brandt are combined with historic footage and traces of the Jewish past in Berlin.

The writer Franz Schmidt reads to two editors from his new romance novel. The two criticize the lack of a problematic portrayal of the joyful life of youth, the role of women and the collective "welding together". He is asked to revise the work again. In his new version, the writer presents - in a staged setting - a pair of lovers who want to start a life together in front of smoking chimneys with a piece of steel from the new production. But even this does not satisfy the two art experts. A couple are kissing in front of the window. They point to it and recommend another revision. Outraged, Mr. Schmidt tells them he is going to write a story about real-life art experts and leaves. Their photo disappears into a folder labeled "superfluous contemporaries".

A locomotive journey traversing the North to the South of the German Democratic Republic on the eve of its dissolution. Labourers, punks, mothers, intellectuals, young and old are implored to reflect on their life choices, the sacrifices they've made, and their place in the world. Despite everything, hope persists.

Palermo, pearl of the Mediterranean, is one of the most popular holiday resorts for European and American tourists. What they do not see, however, are the narrow lanes in the city centre, where thousands upon thousands crowd together in damp and dark holes. The fate of the children is especially moving. Only half of the children in Palermo go to school. Their life is nothing but work and misery. But when they grow up, unemployment awaits them.

A two-part East German documentary tracing Russia’s transformation from the Tsarist Empire to the Soviet Union, from the 1917 October Revolution to the achievements of the space program. Directed by Andrew Thorndike and Annelie Thorndike, the film assembles extensive archival footage to chart political upheaval, ideological consolidation, and technological ambition in twentieth-century Russia. Produced by DEFA and first broadcast on East German television in 1963.

The East German documentary uncovers the postwar career of Heinz Reinefarth, the former SS general responsible for atrocities during the Warsaw Uprising who became mayor of Westerland on the island of Sylt. Combining archival footage with contemporary interviews, the film indicts West Germany for allowing former Nazi officials to return to public office.

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.

Hosted by futurist moderator Chris Wallasch, this playful documentary speculates on what love and relationships might look like in the year 2002. Through interviews with travelers at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport and a collage of witty flashbacks and imagined flashforwards, the film reflects on enduring questions of romance, family, and changing social norms.

A documentary portrait of the city of Memleben in Saxony-Anhalt, counterpointing ancient medieval history and contemporary industrial reality.

Documentary on the master composer, from a GDR point of view.

Voigt, Kroske and Richter were among the first filmmakers who documented the events of the historic 9th of October 1989. Their “material” reflects them from different angles: protesters, workers, opposition members, policemen, street sweepers and functionaries. THE document of the “peaceful revolution”.

Basing his work on documentary material, Andrew Thorndike tells the life story of Wilhelm Pieck: from young worker to fighter for the German working class, and from enemy of national-socialism to the first president of the German Democratic Republic.

Documentary (in colour) about the first youth meeting (Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend) in East Berlin in 1950.

Using documentary material and the testimony of convicted agents, the film attempts to prove that the West Berlin "Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit" was an espionage and sabotage organization. As a militant and anti-communist organization, the KgU supported the resistance against the SED government in the GDR from its founding in 1948 until its dissolution in 1959 and, among other things, founded a tracing service for Western citizens deported to the Soviet occupation zone.

Leipzig is in a period of change. The uproar of Autumn ’89 is followed by a hectic electoral campaign in Spring ’90. Nightly conversations with street sweepers are dominated by hopelessness and broken self-confidence, but one can also recognise a keen sense for the change in social climate following the political unification in the GDR. Despite their lack of illusions, they have an acute view of their surroundings, and for these street sweepers only one certainty prevails: there will always be dirt.

This documentary reports on the master potter Otto Engelmann from Klingmühl, who was commissioned to make black painted clay heads of Karl Marx in the spring of 1973. Engelmann briefly explains the individual work steps from mixing the casting slip to firing the clay heads and then painting them. An old craft is vividly captured on camera and accompanied by original sou

Two narrators read the letters of unknown people and tell about the fate of individuals, their work, love and life.

The film is an appeal by the International Democratic Women's Federation against a new war, calling on all mothers of the world to protect their children.