Banionis, Donatas
Donatas Banionis was born in Kaunas, Lithuania on April 28, 1924. In 1941, when he was still a student, he was hired by the famous actor and theater director Juozas Miltinis for his newly founded Panevezys Drama Theater. Banionis went on to act in over 90 theatrical productions.
Barthel, Kurt
Kurt Barthel was born on January 30, 1931 in Berlin, where he experienced WWII as a child. From 1946 to 1949, he trained to become a mechanic and completed an apprenticeship, after which he worked in different jobs, including as a tractor driver and transportation worker.
Barton Byg
Barton Byg is professor emeritus at UMass Amherst, a founding faculty member of the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies, and founding director of the DEFA Film Library, the only archive and research center outside of Germany devoted to East German filmmaking and related themes.
Bauder, Marc
Marc Bauder was born in Stuttgart in 1974. He studied business administration in Cologne, St. Gallen, and New York. In 1999 he founded his own production company and studied at the Academy for Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg from 2001 to 2005. He lives in Berlin.
Bauer, Hans-Uwe
Hans-Uwe Bauer was born in Stralsund, East Germany, on August 26, 1955. After training as a stage carpenter at the Staatsoper Berlin from 1978 to 1982, he studied acting at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen in Potsdam-Babelsberg (now Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf).
Becker, Jurek
Jurek Becker one of the most important (East) German authors of the 20th century, was born in Poland in 1937. As a child he lived in the Jewish ghetto of Lodz, Poland, and survived the Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.
Behn-Grund, Friedl
Friedl Behn-Grund was born in Bad Polzin (now Polczyn-Zdrój, Poland) on August 26, 1906. In 1924, he started as an assistant to the UFA cinematographer Erich Waschneck. One year later, Behn-Grund worked as the director of photography for Waschneck’s directorial debut, Kampf um die Scholle.
Bergemann, Werner
Werner Bergemann was born in Wendisch Bork in Brandenburg, Germany, on August 4, 1930. He trained as an industrial clerk in his early life and later as a men’s tailor. In 1952, he became an assistant costume designer at the DEFA Studio for Feature Films. By 1958 he was lead costume designer on his own projects.
Berghaus, Ruth
Ruth Berghaus was born in Dresden on July 2, 1927. She studied dance and choreography with Gret Palucca, a Mary Wigman student and member of the Bauhaus movement, before attending advanced classes at the German Academy of the Arts in Berlin. Like the opera directors Joachim Herz and Götz Friedrich, she was a student of Walter Felsenstein and influenced by Brechtian ideas.
Bergmann, Werner
Werner Bergmann was born in Niederkaina, Germany on January 14, 1921. After an apprenticeship as an industrial and portrait photographer, he worked as a lab and lighting technician and as a camera assistant at the Boehner Film company in Dresden.