Großes Kino made in DDR

In 2016, DEFA celebrates its 70th anniversary: the film embarks on a journey into the exciting film history of the GDR. In a comprehensive kaleidoscope, the importance of DEFA productions is illuminated, the relevance of the films as propaganda productions for the GDR, which socio-political themes were in the foreground, but also which heroes DEFA brought to the screen and celebrated as people from the people.

I Am My Own Woman

The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who survived the Nazi reign as a trans woman and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.

Sportsfreund Lötzsch

Der Sturz - Honeckers Ende

Erich Honecker ruled the GDR for 18 years. His fall in 1989 heralded the downfall of the state that had called itself "the better Germany" for 40 years. Nazi victim and autocrat, bourgeois and power-conscious: Honecker was an ideological hardliner who coordinated the construction of the Wall in 1961 and whose regime was known as an unjust state for Wall deaths, firing orders, the Stasi and forced adoptions. In the wake of the fall of communism, the former model socialist fell into homelessness and found himself on the run in his own country. Suffering from cancer, he managed to evade responsibility before a court by emigrating to Chile, where he died in 1994. This gripping documentary portrays the rise and fall of this contradictory German politician with an impressive array of top-class international and national contemporary witnesses. Erich Honecker would have been 100 years old on August 25, 2012.

This Ain't California

A retrospective look at the youth cultures born in the German Democratic Republic. A celebration of the lust for life, a contemporary trip into the world of skate, a tale on three heroes and their boards, from their childhood in the seventies, through their teenage rebellion in the eighties and the summer of 1989, when their life changed forever, to 2011.

After Winter Comes Spring

A locomotive journey traversing the North to the South of the German Democratic Republic on the eve of its dissolution. Labourers, punks, mothers, intellectuals, young and old are implored to reflect on their life choices, the sacrifices they've made, and their place in the world. Despite everything, hope persists.

The Red Elvis

A documentary on the late American entertainer Dean Reed, who became a huge star in East Germany after settling there in 1973.

DDR - die entsorgte Republik

Last to Know

In the documentary Last To Know political prisoners, sent to jail for openly opposing the East German regime that existed until the German reunification in 1990, talk about their times of trial and their lives today. Neither they, nor their families have come to terms with what happened.

Reunification in the Ice: The Story of the Last GDR Antarctic Explorers

In 1989, thirteen GDR scientists and technicians set off from East Berlin to the Georg Forster research station in the Antarctic. During their expedition the Berlin Wall fell on November 9th. Cut off from the images that go around the world, the men can only experience the historical events passively. When they returned in the spring of 1991, their homeland was a foreign country. The documentary reconstructs the thoughts and feelings of the East German researchers on the basis of eyewitness accounts, diary excerpts, letters, film material, grandiose landscape shots from the location of the action and unique photos to make the consequences of the events tens of thousands of kilometers away on the small GDR expedition in the middle of the eternal ice tangible.

Lenin kam nur bis Lüdenscheid - Meine kleine deutsche Revolution

The free, almost naive view from the perspective of a child puts the "68ers" in a new, illuminating light in the anniversary year 2008. The film is a provocative reckoning with the ideological upbringing that seemed so progressive and yet was suffocated by the children's desire to finally grow up. With an ironic eye and a feuilletonistic style, author Richard David Precht and Cologne documentary film director André Schäfer trace a childhood in the West German provinces - and place the major events of those years in completely different, smaller and very private contexts.

Our Children

From an official perspective, marginal youth culture did not exist in East Germany. The topic of subcultures was taboo in the GDR, and groups such as goths, skinheads, anti-skins, punks and neo-Nazis were dismissed as social deviations promoted by western countries. Director Roland Steiner had access to such young East Germans in the late 1980s. Over the course of four years, he brought them before the camera in an attempt to understand what drew them to these groups.

Brüder Kühn: Zwei Musiker spielen sich frei

Alfred

Short biographical documentary about the life of Alfred Florstedt and his life as a progressive communist from the Weimar Republic to his death in 1985.

Die Entstehung der beiden deutschen Staaten

Short film about the GDR (DDR) and the FRG (BRD)

The Ministry for State Security - Everyday life at a public authority

Former heads, senior officers and the rector of the MfS law school explain how the ministry functioned. The interviewees see themselves as legitimate actors with a clear mandate and political enemy image. They provide an insight into the techniques and routines of secret service work, psychological tricks during interrogations and the management of “unofficial collaborators”. What they all have in common is that they are not aware of any moral guilt. The directors contrast their footage of prisons and archives with the statements of former Stasi employees in an attempt to expose their evasions and efforts at suppression.

Heimatkunde

Former "Titanic" satire magazine editor Martin Sonneborn takes an undercover trip around Berlin and discovers the East-German mentality and what is left of the socialist German Democratic Republic.

Time Loops - A Conversation with Christa Wolf

Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.

DDR: Der Aufstand vom 17. Juni 1953

"GDR The uprising of June 17, 1953" - : Since its founding, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has repeatedly struggled with domestic political problems. While the standard of living of the population in the western part of Germany steadily increased, it stagnated in the GDR . A one-sided, industry-oriented reconstruction policy, coupled with rapid militarization, weighed on the country's economy, which was already under pressure from Soviet reparations demands. A majority of the population did not identify with the socialist system, which accordingly stood on shaky ground.

Ich will da sein - Jenny Gröllmann

The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.

Cold Hard Cash

Watch what happens when two beautiful bad girls with no option are put in a desperate situation.

Six Days of Sistine

Two souls lost in a world of modernisation find each other in a moment's need for clarity and appreciation.

The Search

The young architect Severin Sereda receives a telegram with a message about his father’s serious illness. But he does not intend to go. Zhenya, his beloved girl, is outraged by such callousness, however, Severin explains that he gave the word to his deceased mother to never see his father who left her. Nevertheless, Zhenya manages to persuade Severin. He goes, but he doesn’t catch his father alive ...

Spring

This is a story about a city guy Nikolai, who will have to go instead of his friend on a rural business trip. A series of funny events, meetings and the beauty of the Yakut village encourage Nikolai to make an important decision in his life…

Scary Movie 2

While the original parodied slasher flicks like Scream, Keenen Ivory Wayans's sequel to Scary Movie takes comedic aim at haunted house movies. A group of students visit a mansion called "Hell House," and murderous high jinks ensue.

Unified MMA 50

Unified MMA 50 took place Friday, March 31, 2023 with 10 fights at River Cree Resort & Casino in Enoch, Alberta, Canada.

A Stray Girlfriend

A romantic holiday has left Inés all alone. She's not at all happy about it.

Wonderful Adventures of Nils

A film adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf's classic book about Nils Holgersson, who is a real rascal. As punishment for his mischief, a house elf shrinks him to his size. The farm animals are out for revenge and so Nils must escape on the back of a goose from Skåne in the south to Lapland in the north. During his flight over Sweden, Nils gets to take part in many adventures.

Le voyage de l'eau - Europe -

Layover

At the end of 1999. A photographer enters a mountain to film a group of followers that run away from the real. She is held by a man and finds that the man has some connection to the followers.

Johan Falk: De 107 patrioterna

It's a beautiful day in Slottsskogen, Gothenburg idyllic city park, when suddenly the unthinkable happens - gunfire amidst all people. Two gangsters shooting game against each other and a large police operation starts. The conflict grows rapidly to involve several gangs from Gothenburg underworld. GSI switched to try to identify a new thread which proves to be both larger and better armed than any other. The only clue is a tattoo on one of the killed gang members.

Operation Cupcake

When Army Colonel Griff Carson (Dean Cain) returns home from Germany on a two-month leave, he considers retiring if he doesn't get promoted to General. Being away on deployment has been hard on Griff, separating him from his wife Janet (Kristy Swanson) and two teenagers, Kim (Galadriel Stineman) and Ollie (Alec Gray).

Mr. Bjarnfreðarson

Centers on Georg Bjarnfreðarson, an over-educated know-it-all who has just been released from jail after a ten year sentence for manslaughter, but is still a prisoner of his own past.

25 Kille

Four brothers receive news of an inheritance and must contend with an unscrupulous landowner to receive their birthright.

The Author

The Man Who Killed Billy the Kid

This spaghetti western presents a fictitious version of the often filmed legend of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Billy becomes innocently an outlaw while protecting his mother, but then turns into a trigger happy killer. When he falls in love he tries with the help of Pat Garrett, a fatherly friend, to change back. However, circumstances force Billy to become violent again and it is Garrett who is credited with the killing.

The Return Of Those Who Never Went

After her biological father dies, Diana runs away from her abusive stepfather and teams up with a maid to rob the house of his abusive boss.

Gay ?

"I'm gay, I'm a fag, I'm proud and I really love sex."