- Instructor: Aleyna Kilicaslan
- Instructor: Anna Mayer
- Instructor: Elliott Schreiber
- Instructor: Anna Mayer
- Instructor: Elliott Schreiber
German/Film 265, Spring 2026: German Cinema Behind the Wall
Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, films from and about the former GDR are finally becoming available to audiences, students, and researchers in the U.S. DEFA (the state-owend film company) produced over 750 feature films and countless documentaries between 1946-1990. Although fourteen of these featured in a recent list of the hundred best films of all time, few who did not grow up in the former GDR are familiar with more than a handful of them. In fact, East German film culture had remained terra incognita for the Western public during the existence of the GDR. This course examines the successes and failures of some DEFA films as they aspired to be a national cinema in their own right. We will analyze this significant segment of German film history in relation to the development of New (West) German Cinema and think about the exact "placing" of GDR cinema within German film history and international debates around national cinema.
The course is divided into six parts: we will begin with a body of anti-fascist films produced in the GDR. The analysis of these films will help us grasp motivations and political convictions of many East German directors, such as Wolfgang Staudte, Frank Beyer, and Konrad Wolf. The "forbidden films" from 1965/66, which until 1990 had never been seen, show how advanced East German film was already in the early sixties. The analysis of GDR Westerns, as well as the popular musical film Hot Summer, will help us understand the way popular culture worked in East Germany. Analyzing the role of women in DEFA will give us insight into the difference between theoretical emancipation and equality in the GDR. A number of documentary films will give students a glimpse at everyday life in East Germany. Finally, we will talk about Wende films and the legacies of GDR film.
In addition to examining the films within the larger socio-historical context in Germany, we will talk about the fundamentals of film analysis and contemporary film criticism. By the end of the course, students should be able both to do a "close reading" of a film and to place it within the larger historical context defined by the aesthetic and political debates in German society to which the films respond.
Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, films from and about the former GDR are finally becoming available to audiences, students, and researchers in the U.S. DEFA (the state-owend film company) produced over 750 feature films and countless documentaries between 1946-1990. Although fourteen of these featured in a recent list of the hundred best films of all time, few who did not grow up in the former GDR are familiar with more than a handful of them. In fact, East German film culture had remained terra incognita for the Western public during the existence of the GDR. This course examines the successes and failures of some DEFA films as they aspired to be a national cinema in their own right. We will analyze this significant segment of German film history in relation to the development of New (West) German Cinema and think about the exact "placing" of GDR cinema within German film history and international debates around national cinema.
The course is divided into six parts: we will begin with a body of anti-fascist films produced in the GDR. The analysis of these films will help us grasp motivations and political convictions of many East German directors, such as Wolfgang Staudte, Frank Beyer, and Konrad Wolf. The "forbidden films" from 1965/66, which until 1990 had never been seen, show how advanced East German film was already in the early sixties. The analysis of GDR Westerns, as well as the popular musical film Hot Summer, will help us understand the way popular culture worked in East Germany. Analyzing the role of women in DEFA will give us insight into the difference between theoretical emancipation and equality in the GDR. A number of documentary films will give students a glimpse at everyday life in East Germany. Finally, we will talk about Wende films and the legacies of GDR film.
In addition to examining the films within the larger socio-historical context in Germany, we will talk about the fundamentals of film analysis and contemporary film criticism. By the end of the course, students should be able both to do a "close reading" of a film and to place it within the larger historical context defined by the aesthetic and political debates in German society to which the films respond.
- Instructor: Silke von der Emde