DEFA-Studio für Wochenschau und Dokumentarfilme

Erich Honecker visits the Republic of Zambia

Documentary about the small city of Rheinsberg, once the summer residence of Prussian princes. Average working class people comment on the history of this special place.

Documents important parts of the East German rock music scene of the late 1980s, from well-established bands like Silly, to underground rock bands like Feeling B. This road movie features young people using music to express their take on life, opposition to their parents' generation and opinions on the social and political climate in East Germany. It includes clips from concerts and interviews with fans and members of various bands, such as Feeling B's Christian Lorenz and Paul Landers, now members of Rammstein.

This first co-production between the GDR and Great Britain is intended to contribute to an understanding of the situation and attitudes of millions of working people in opposing social orders. Using the example of shipyard workers, fishermen, the brigade and family of a trade union active cook and unemployed person of various ages and professions in Newcastle on the one hand and a brigade of crane operators of the Warnowwerft and fishermen of the Warnemünde cooperative on the other hand, insights into the way of life and attitudes of people of our time are to be conveyed.

Social, cultural, and historical changes in a village, the first film of Koepp's “landscape” series.

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

Vacation in Sylt is a black and white compilation film about Heinz Reinefarth, a Nazi Party member, high SS police leader of Warthe, and later mayor (1951-1964) of Westerland/Sylt.

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

Young women made up only five per cent of students at the technical college in Ilmenau. The film devotes itself of this particular situation by conveying impressions of the women's everyday lives.

Posing as West German journalists, East German documentary filmmakers Heynowski and Scheumann pay a visit to the notorious Nazi-turned-mercenary Siegfried “Kongo” Müller, pump him with booze, and get him to talk about his life and war campaigns in Africa.

Started in the summer of 1961, even before the Wall was built, the film becomes an explanation after this historical event as to why things can no longer go on as they were before. Unmistakably, as in almost all of Karl Gass' films, the passion with which he treats his subject is unmistakable. If you want to get to know the zeitgeist of the historically significant year 1961, which on both sides knew more the Cold War vocabulary than factual arguments, you can see the Eastern variant in this propaganda film.

A life story from a bygone era. In a retirement home, the 90-year-old Hermann Reußner tells his story. He was born in 1891 in Dessau, back when a duke still reigned there. As a soldier under the German emperor, he participated in World War I. Reußner talks about his beginnings as a cook in the famous hotel Adlon at the Pariser Platz in Berlin. Later, he was head chef there for 30 years. This private life story gets impressively illustrated with photos and film footage.

Short film about electric railroad lines

Documents the work of youth work action on construction sites in East Berlin.

East German documentary short about Somalia in 1976.

Documentary short.