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An archive, research & distribution center for the cinema of East Germany in North America, with wor https://linktr.ee/defafilmlibrary

10/30/2026

WOLFGANGSTAUDTE120 — THE BEACON (1954)

Staudte’s last DEFA film, a co-production between East Germany and Sweden, is set in the harsh winter of 1901. The residents of an Atlantic island can no longer make a living from fishing. When the expected supply ship fails to arrive, they pressure the lighthouse keeper to extinguish the signal, so a ship will run aground, allowing them to salvage its cargo. He eventually gives in, and when a freighter crashes on the cliffs, they discover that it is carrying not food, but children.
As early as 1949, Wolfgang Staudte, together with Werner Jörg Lüddecke, had completed a screenplay for this project that dealt with the struggle between individual and collective guilt; one of the themes Staudte had returned to repeatedly. Film historian Ralf Schenk wrote in 1996 that the film was in the production plan of the Hamburg-based company Real-Film, but “was put on hold after it had been given the opportunity to shoot an entertainment film starring Zarah Leander for the first time since the war; this now required funding and resources. It wasn’t until 1954 that the director managed to secure a deal with DEFA for the project.”

The film was met with incomprehension among East German officials, who criticized Staudte’s pacifist beliefs in the film. In the mid-1950s, after Staudte decided to work in West Germany only, Staudte’s last DEFA film was rarely shown on big screens.

Poster design: Klaus Wittkugel

10/28/2026

SAVE THE DATES! Applications are open for DEFA’s 2027 DEFA Summer Film Institute!

We’d love to have you join us for the 2027 DEFA Summer Film Institute!

Mark your calendar with these important dates:

• January 15, 2027: Application deadline. Submit your application to our Institute Coordinator, Ruben Schwaben, at [email protected].

• February 1, 2027: Invitations to participate will be sent out.

• February 16, 2027: Deadline to confirm your participation.

Visit umass.edu/defa for more information and application details.

We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at the 2027 DEFA Summer Film Institute!

10/28/2026

🟥 AVAILABLE FOR RENT & STREAM! We are excited to add two new titles to our distribution catalog. Both films are available with English standard and SDH subtitles.

🎥 FIRST LOSS (GDR, 1990, dir. Maxim Dessau, 96 min, b&w)
Summer 1942: After farmer Heinrich is drafted into World War II, his young wife Kathrin and sister Frieda struggle to keep the family farm alive. Hope emerges when N**i authorities assign Soviet prisoners of war to the village, allowing Frieda, who has stepped into her brother’s role, to secure a prisoner as a forced laborer. Loosely inspired by Brigitte Reimann’s 1956 short story The Woman in the Pillory, the film marked director Maxim Dessau’s debut and screened at prestigious international festivals.

“Intense cinema that allowed director Maxim Dessau to introduce himself to a wider audience […]. —Lexikon des Internationalen Films

🎥 DEATH CAMP SACHSENHAUSEN
(Soviet Occupation Zone, 1946-47, dir. Richard Brandt, 40 min, b&w, doc)
In 1946, months after World War II, a Soviet military commission visits Sachsenhausen concentration camp, accompanied by a former executioner turned prisoner, who recounts the N**is’ systematic methods of mass murder. Combining newly filmed scenes with archival footage from N**i-era films, including Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, and wartime documentaries such as Elizaveta Svilova’s The Fall of Berlin, the film was commissioned by the Soviet Military Administration in Berlin and presented as evidence at the Soviet show trial of Sachsenhausen SS personnel in fall 1947.

“[The documentary], a fraught film full of contradiction and controversy, will remain a crucial document of its moment.” —Daniel Pinto, “’They Saw Their Guilt on Screen:’ The Archive Effects of Death Camp Sachsenhausen”

10/27/2026

Repsted • Goethe-Institut Houston Punk on film. Rarely screened. Never tamed.

From the U.S. to West Germany and the GDR, punk took on different forms, challenged authority, and gave outsiders a voice.

Join Goethe-Institut Houston and MFAH for a special film program exploring the music, people, and DIY spirit behind the movement, featuring films you don’t often get to see on the big screen. 50 years of punk, one question: What does punk mean today?

Goethe-Institut guests can get $6 tickets using the discount code “F27PAR” on the MFAH Films website.

10/27/2026

WOLFGANGSTAUDTE120 —THE STORY OF LITTLE MOOK (1953)

East Germany’s most beloved film classic is based on a fairytale by Wilhelm Hauff: In a small town, an old man is teased, taunted and chased by the local children. One day, he manages to hold them spellbound with a story – his own story. A little boy called Mook is banished from his home by evil relatives following the death of his father. In search of happiness and fortune, he goes off to live in the desert, where he meets a wondrous old woman. He becomes the owner of magic racing slippers and a wand with which to find hidden treasures.

The film takes the viewer into a colorful magical setting with stunning special effects by Ernst Kunstmann. The costumes were designed by Walter Schulze-Mittendorff, who is known for designing and creating the Machine Man character for METROPOLIS.

Originally, the production budget was earmarked for a film adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, directed by Wolfgang Staudte. When that project fell through, Staudte filmed the fairytale as a stopgap. Wolfgang Staudte wasn’t happy when the DEFA offered him the fairytale adaptation: “I really wanted to make proper political films, and then something like this came along,” In a 1976 interview Staudte recalled that he really enjoyed the film project. “There were sets—it was truly Hollywood, and even better. They were more solid and spacious, and I was able to work there using a lot of technical tricks.”

Although the film is still one of the most successful East German children’s films, there is a growing number of critics who find the film discriminatory and accuse it of using blackface.

Poster design: Kurt Geffers

10/26/2026

Reposted• German Film Office November 4–11 at Anthology Film Archives 🎸 GERMAN PUNK: Rarely screened films from the punk era in Germany. Tickets at the link in bio.

With the spread of punk to West and East Germany came a wave of films inspired by its brash style and anti-establishment ethos. “German Punk” brings a selection of these films—all shot between 1979 and 1999—to audiences in New York. Documenting the bands, social changes, and economic conditions of the era, these films represent a vibrant snapshot of post-war German cultural and political history.

German punk legend Gudrun Gut Gudrun Gut will introduce a screening of EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN: LIEBESLIEDER on November 6!

A collaboration of the German Film Office, Anthology Film Archives, and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung NYC. Part of .

10/26/2026

READ: “Solo Sunny Becomes an Object of Dispute,” by Dieter Wolf, former DEFA chief dramaturg of the Babelsberg Artistic Group

In his 2025 essay, “Solo Sunny Becomes an Object of Dispute,” Dieter Wolf, former DEFA chief dramaturg of the Babelsberg artistic group, takes readers behind the scenes of one of Konrad Wolf’s films. Drawing on a chapter from his unpublished 2005 manuscript, Gruppe Babelsberg 1964–1990 – Unsere 97 Filme. Erinnerungen eines Gruppenleiters (Babelsberg Group 1964–1990: Our 97 Films. Memories of a Group Leader), Wolf offers a firsthand account of how the film took shape, how director Konrad Wolf and screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase worked together, and how the film was received by audiences and the press. Enriched with excerpts from original production documents and contemporary newspaper articles, his essay illuminates not only the creative process behind the film but also the controversies it sparked.

The essay was translated from German by Ruben Schwaben (DEFA Film Library) and can be read following the link in our bio.

10/23/2026

Happy 70th birthday to actress Katrin Sass!

While still a student, Katrin Sass landed the leading role of Sonja in Heiner Carow’s portrait of an East German marriage, UNTIL DEATH DO US APART (1978), and became a star overnight in East Germany. Just three years later, she made her mark on the international stage as Nina Kern, a single mother fighting for custody of her three children, in Herrmann Zschoche’s ON PROBATION (1981). The performance earned her the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival. Sass soon became a sought-after actress, working with some of East German cinema’s most distinguished directors, including Frank Beyer, Roland Gräf, and Siegfried Kühn.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sass continued her career in film and television. Her leading performance in Michael Klier’s HEIDI M. (2001) earned her both the German Film Award and the German Film Critics’ Award. Shortly afterward, she captivated international audiences as Christiane Kerner, the devoted mother who falls into a coma before the fall of the Berlin Wall and doesn’t wake up again until after it, in the global hit GOOD BYE, LENIN! (2003), winning a Bambi Award and the Audience Award for Best Actress at the European Film Awards.

On television, Sass became a familiar face as a member of the ensemble cast of THE WEISSENSEE SAGA (2010–2018). Since 2014, she has also kept audiences hooked as a former district attorney in the crime series THE BALTIC CRIME. Her name is credited to over 200 film productions.

Acting isn’t her only talent: Sass is also a singer and released her debut album in 2023.

Photo; Katrin Sass as Ursula Losch in Roland Gräf’s FALLADA - LAST CHAPTER (1988).

10/22/2026

WOLFGANGSTAUDTE120— THE KAISER’S LACKEY (1951)

This historical satire, based on Heinrich Mann’s world-famous novel, Der Untertan, has been ranked by film critics among the 100 Most Significant German Films of all time. In Mann’s biting critique of conservative Wilhelmine Germany, written during WWI, Diederich Hessling learns an important lesson for an ambitious man: One must first serve power to gain power for oneself. From then on, his modus operandi is to bow to superiors and kick underlings. Staudte showed in his film adaptation how a subservient mentality and militarism were the precursors to the two world wars.

The directors Falk Harnack and Erich von Stroheim had originally been considered for the director’s chair. When Wolfgang Staudte took over the project, he initially wanted to cast Arno Paulsen, his leading actor from THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US. However, the decision was ultimately made to cast the younger Werner Peters for the lead role instead. From the very beginning, the film was conceived as a prestige project for the DEFA Studio and for the GDR. Therefore, Staudte and his cinematographer, Robert Baberske, were able to work undisturbed despite accusations of formalism.

Staudte said of his film’s message: “I want to show the willingness of certain people around 1900 that, spanning two world wars, led to Germany’s collapse in 1945. It is intended to be a continuation of my indictment of these circles and a warning against these people, just as I sought to express in the film THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US.”

Poster design: Heinz Wehlisch

10/20/2026

WOLFGANGSTAUDTE120 — ROTATION (1948-49)

ROTATION portrays the story of an apolitical working-class family that nevertheless gets drawn into collusion with N**i policies. Mechanic Hans Behnke ignores the political events in the early 1930s and considers joining the N**i party to improve his financial standing. However, he helps his brother-in-law who asks him to repair a rotary press that is used to produce anti-fascist leaflets. When Hans’s son, a dedicated member of the Hi**er Youth, finds out about this, he betrays his father…

The film, which explores the individual struggle within a murderous dictatorship, was censored by Soviet authorities in East Germany because of its pacifist message and the inclusion of footage from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1936).

Staudte stated that the intended message of the film was anti-war and his goal was to „show how such an unimaginable catastrophe could happen, in order to help ensure that it will not come to a greater catastrophe in the future.“

Video Librarian wrote that ROTATION “is a powerful film not only for its dissection of a family racked by internal strife, but also for its willingness to address the anti-Semitic campaigns that fueled N**i policies […], providing valuable insight into the conflicted German mindset during this tumultuous era.”

Poster design: Werner Ewert

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http://umass.edu/defa

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