At 47, German sculptor and graphic artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) lost her beloved son Peter in WWI. She began to process her grief in drawings and sculptures, including the famous memorial The Grieving Parents, and became increasingly active in protesting social injustice.
To what extent can the working people of the GDR apply their creativity and develop their personalities? This film tries to answer this question using the example of the Warnemünde shipyard on the country's northern coast.
A young, naive and enthusiastic director comes to a provincial town in East Germany to put on Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the local theater. Although the lethargic company shows no interest in the play, he remains undaunted.
Cowboys Joe and Beny travel the Wild West as a financially-struggling entertainment duo. Joe sees himself as a noble fighter for the good in the world, while Beny dreams of becoming a successful clown.
One of the first works by acclaimed (East) German documentary director Volker Koepp, this portrait of filmmaker Slatan Dudow (1903-1963) follows his life and work in exile, painting a detailed picture of the Marxist artist.
This film musical is a romantic comedy of mistaken identities set at the 10th World Festival in Berlin. Alexej from Moscow meets and is attracted to Mascha, right before he leaves for Berlin. Mascha also travels to Berlin to perform with her cultural ensemble.
Sunny (Renate Krößner, Go for Zucker), an aspiring singer, longs for fulfillment and to be recognized as someone special. She gets kicked out of her band, but starts over in the "underground" scene of East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg.
The music festival "Rock for Peace" was organized by the Central Committee of the Free German Youth and the Committee for Entertainment Arts of the GDR between 1982 and 1987.
This gripping drama, based on personal experiences of screenwriter Angel Wagenstein, is set during a chapter of the Holocaust in the Balkans that sheds light on the experience of Sephardic Jews. It was awarded the Special Grand Jury Prize at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival.
Well-known actor Ernst Stein (played by Rolf Ludwig) protested against the military invasion of Prague in 1968 by quitting the stage during a performance of "King Lear," never to return. For him, the theater has lost its claim to being a moral institution.