GDR On Film: Stories of Everyday Life
Screening of East German films from 1977–1990
Image credit: © DEFA-Stiftung/Sebastian Richter, Imbiß Spezial
On the occasion of German Unity Day and our current exhibition für uns by Helga Paris – one of East Germany’s most significant photographic voices – we invite you to explore the cinema of the GDR through stories of everyday life.
Spend an afternoon in our Ballroom, formerly the Camera cinema, as we screen four films by Angelika Andrees, Jürgen Böttcher, and Thomas Heise.
Through fleeting glimpses of kitchens, snack bars, and private rooms, these films reveal ordinary moments charged with quiet intensity: fragments of a society in its final days.
There will be two screenings of all three movies at 14:00 and 17:00, each of them running for about two hours. All three films will be shown in German, without subtitles. Visit all exhibitions in the museum along the screenings with your ticket.
ABOUT THE FILMS
JACKI (1977, Angelika Andrees, 30′)
A perky 14-year-old girl at the centre of a lively, exhausting patchwork family model. Angelika Andrees (set design and directing) and Julia Kunert (camera), both graduates of the Academy for Film and Television of the GDR, present the girl Jacki in their graduation film. The audience not only gains insight into Jacki — her life, surroundings, thoughts, and struggles — but also into the perspective and attitude of the young filmmakers themselves.
DIE KÜCHE (1986, Jürgen Böttcher, 43′)
The camera follows women performing their daily duties in a large canteen, skillfully maneuvering the big and heavy pots the endless monotony of preparing, cooking, and dishing out food. Although, or, rather, because not one of the women is introduced or talks into the camera. A universally valid picture is being drawn, a picture of people doing heavy and dreary work.
Imbiß Spezial (1989, Thomas Heise, 27′)
The documentary film Imbiß Spezial is Thomas Heise’s graduation film at the Academy of Arts and is considered one of the most important films about the Wende-Zeit (the (the period around the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany). At the snack stand, the director captures the diverse, small events and concerns of people living through this time of social upheaval, thereby precisely reflecting the political situation.