Summer Film Institute
Sponsors:
ICESTORM International, Inc.; the DEFA Film Library, the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Judaic and Near East Studies Program, the Modern European Studies Program, the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies, the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, and the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement at UMass Amherst; the Departments of German Studies and Film Studies at Mount Holyoke College; the European Studies Program at Hampshire College; the Department of German at Amherst College; the Five College Film Council; the Five College Lecture Fund; the Northampton International Film Festival; the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities; the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Boston; the Goethe-Institut Boston; the Max Kade Foundation; the RIAS Berlin Commission; and Inter Nationes, Bonn.
The Power of Images:
Representing Germany Ten Years After Reunification
The second conference sponsored by the DEFA Film Library was held from November 4-7, 1999. Principal conference events were presented at the Hotel Northampton, with films and exhibits at other Northampton Film Festival locations. The conference was also coordinated with a touring film series, "Berlin, Divided Heaven: From the Ice Age to the Thaw."
This international, interdisciplinary conference marked the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and featured artists, political and cultural figures and scholars examining the role of images in constructing a contemporary German identity. Attended by over 120 scholars from 6 countries, the conference successfully stimulated discussion of German culture at the end of the 20th Century in the contexts of interdisciplinary scholarship as well as public cultural outreach. Selected articles were also chosen to appear in the journal German Politics and Society.