4 - The Wende in Film

Summary

THE WENDE, THE PEACEFUL REVOLUTION in the GDR, profoundly changed the lives of everyone who grew up in that small, cramped country. Fortunately for me, my professional sphere also changed dramatically. I had previously worked at the news desk of Neues Deutschland, the organ of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) while publishing short pieces in the popular magazine Der Filmspiegel on the side. After the Wende I was finally able to pursue my dream job. I became a cultural journalist specializing in film on the popular youth radio program DT 64 and soon got my own show on Saturday mornings, still my regular time slot today. Even after more than two decades, radio audiences in Berlin and Brandenburg can listen to me every Saturday at noon, when I host a two-hour film show for the public broadcaster radioeins.

Though I didn’t meet the important DEFA directors, screenwriters, and actors until after the Wende, I have done a lot of work on DEFA since then. I’ve made documentaries on various aspects of the studio, written about it, and discussed it in countless forums. I was in an ideal position to tackle these tasks. For one thing, I had seen DEFA films as a normal filmgoer, not as an insider—though I certainly shared the skepticism that many GDR citizens had about the studio’s monopoly on film. Film historical hindsight is, of course, dominated by the better films. The mediocre, unprofessional, and half-hearted DEFA productions—and there were plenty of them—have faded from my memory. For another, I hadn’t yet met the creators of these films. All that connected us was my curiosity about their work and stories. To them I was also someone new, a person who was asking his questions for the first time and without any bias.

When I consider the films that DEFA made in its final years, one dominant impression remains: that of missed opportunities and bad timing. DEFA operated like any large traditional studio, with strict hierarchies and clear structures. As a result monitoring was possible at all times. For this reason relatively few films were actually banned. Instead they were usually blocked in an earlier phase.