In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the DEFA Studios, Kanopy is launching the DEFA Essential Collection, featuring 25 newly-restored classics. Take advantage of their special offer starting August 30!

This annual prize, created in commemoration of the 75^th anniversary of the founding of the DEFA Film Studios, will be awarded for the best graduate student paper on East German cinema submitted for consideration. It is accompanied by a cash award of $500 from the Founder’s Fund for Student Researchers. Deadline: Sept. 1, 2021.

On May 16, 1946 the founding of the DEFA Studio in the Soviet Occupation Zone got official approval. In 2021, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of this occasion with a wide range of new programs and resources!

A Film+Talk event March 22-25 that looks at right-wing tendencies and trends in (East) Germany, then and now. REGISTER NOW!

In summer 2020, the DEFA Film Library decided to start developing teaching guides for selected films, with the help of scholars and teachers. The goal is to help teachers in a variety of classroom setting use films that speak directly to issues that concern students and other young people today. For the selected films, Teaching Guides will be available through our website and Kanopy's website, as well as a bonus feature on DVDs.

We are pleased to introduce FILMBOX, a new digital teaching archive on Vimeo that will be perfect for teachers, students and others... and we are offering access free of charge!

EVENT II - November 5, 2020. A discussion with director Sheri Hagen and hosts Rosemarie Peña and Kevina King about reframing diversity in German cinema and Hagen's film At Second Glance.

Event I - October 22, 2020. Audre Lorde, May Ayim and the Black German Movement. A webinar discussion with director Dagmar Schultz and author Ika Hügel-Marshall. Moderated by Sara Lennox and hosted by curator Kevina King (both UMass Amherst).

PERFORMANCE & HISTORY. Event V - April 8, 2021. A webinar discussion with actor and director Lara-Sophie Milagro and dancer and poet Lauren Cox. Moderated by Dr. Jamele Watkins (UMN).

BLACK STORIES & DIASPORA. Event IV - March 11, 2021. REGISTER NOW! A virtual discussion with director Branwen Okpako about The Education of Auma Obama and her other films, representing 20 years of filming stories about Black German lives and experiences. Moderated by historian Tiffany N. Florvil.

BLACK SPACES / BLACK VOICES. Event III - Feb. 11, 2021. A virtual discussion with well-known actor and founder of Panthertainment, Tyron Ricketts, and filmmaker Denise Ekale Kum. Moderated by activist Jeff Kwasi Klein.

Though DVDs will no longer arrive by Christmas... if you're still looking for presents, see our new releases in our Store or take a look at this video preview!

2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. An untiring compositional innovator, Beethoven was a crucial figure in the transition from the classical to the romantic era in classical music. Afflicted with increasing deafness as of his early 30s, he was also a difficult person and suffered personal and social hardships.

In February 2019, Founding Director Barton Byg officially established the DEFA Film Library Endowment, as a means to support and enhance the mission and activities of the DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst. In March 2019, he shared some of his thoughts on this important step.

In September 2019, German director and media artist Lutz Dammbeck will be our artist-in-residence guest and tour the USA with 18 of his documentaries and animation films, which we will make available for rental and educational streaming. Art & Power: Lutz Dammbeck is part of the Deutschlandjahr USA program.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the first volume of our new book series on Film and the Global Cold War! 

The first major solo exhibition in the U.S. by German graphic artist Anke Feuchtenberger. Curated by UMass MFA student Bibiana Medkova, selected works by Feuchtenberger was on display at the Olver Design Building at UMass Amherst from June 26 through July 13, 2018.

We’d like to celebrate our 25th anniversary with you! PLEASE JOIN US! The first 25 people to contact us about screening one of our films at their cinema, cultural institution, university or college in 2018 will get 25% off our regular screening fee!

In the GDR social satire When You're Older, Dear Adam, a boy finds a flashlight that makes people float when they lie. Goethe Zentrum Atlanta hosted this DVD premiere during the 2016 SCMS conference.

Screenwriter and novelist Angel Wagenstein is the link between two films to be screened by the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival, the DEFA Film Library and Amherst Cinema, April 11-12, 2018. 

As efforts to restore classic DEFA films are in full swing at the DEFA Foundation in Berlin, our collection of restored titles on DCP is keeping up with the newest movie theater technology!

From April 5-16, 2016, the Museum of Modern Art in NYC screened films released in 1966 in both East and West Germany. Four DEFA films were part of this  series that compared different cinematic responses to national and international events and topics.

On May 17, 1946, the Soviet Military Administration in Germany granted a license to the DEFA (Deutsche Film-AG) Studio for the production of films. Only five months later the first DEFA film, The Murderers Are among Us (dir. Wolfgang Staudte), premiered in Berlin and won international recognition—the first German film made after WWII.

On Dec. 13, 2015, director Gerd Kroske presented the US premiere of his film Drawing a Line at Amherst Cinema. 

The long-awaited restoration of Heiner Carow’s The Russians Are Coming (1968/87) was screened as part of the Musuem of Modern Art festival To Save and Project on November 3 and 7, 2016.