Helmut Dziuba was born in Dresden in 1933. He studied directing under Sergei Gerassimov and Michail Romm at the Moscow Film Academy (VGIK) from 1953 to 1962, along with Aleksandr Mitta and Andrei Tarkovsky.

Kaspar Eichel was born in Berlin on November 27, 1942. His father, Wito Eichel, was an author and later became the director of the DEFA Studio for Synchronization. From 1960 to 1963, Eichel studied acting at the Staatliche Schauspielschule (State Academy of Dramatic Art, now: Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch”) in Berlin. 

Thomas Elsaesser is one of the leading film scholars worldwide and the first holder of the Ingmar Bergman professorship. He is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam and known for his writings on classical and post-classical Hollywood, national German cinema, and on early cinema and new media history and the relations between mainstream and the avant garde in European cinema.

Eberhard Esche was one of East Germany’s best known film and theater actors. Born on October 25, 1933 in Leipzig, he studied performing arts from 1952 until 1955. After acting in Meiningen, Erfurt, and Chemnitz, he joined the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1961. He was known for his brilliant portrayal of classical roles, as well as for the role of Lancelot in Yevgeni Schwarz’s anti-Stalinist play, “The Dragon” (dir.

Julio García Espinosa is a leading facilitator of Cuban cinema. As both film theorist and director, Espinosa has been praised by critics for his integral role in what critics have called the golden decade of Cuban cinema. This work includes his 1969 manifesto “For an Imperfect Cinema,” which helped to define the scope of all Latin American film.

Rita Feldmeier was born in 1954 in Rostock. From 1970 to 1973 she attended the acting school there and then debuted at the Volkstheater Rostock. Since 1976, she has been a member of the company of the Hans Otto Theater in Postdam. She has also made guest appearances at theaters in Essen, Berlin, Braunschweig, Brandenburg, Anklam, and Dresden.

Elfriede (Elfie) Fiegert was born in 1946 to a white German mother and an African American father who had been in the US military. Her mother placed her in an orphanage. Fiegert later found out that her mother had been a doctor in Freising and had emigrated to the United States soon after her birth. After his tour of duty in Germany, her African-American father was transferred to Korea. 

Günther Fischer was born on June 23, 1944, in Teplitz-Schönau, Germany (now Teplice, Czech Republic). After training as a music teacher at the Robert Schumann Konservatorium in Zwickau, East Germany, from 1960 to 1963, Fischer studied clarinet, saxophone, composition and arranging at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik in Berlin from 1965 to 1969, where he also taught composition and arranging in the 1970s.

Holly Fisher was born in Boston in 1942. She received her BA in Asian Art History at Columbia University in 1964, and a MA in Cinema Studies at NYU in 1982.