Roland Dressel was born in Meerane, Germany, in 1932. He trained as a photographer from 1953 to 1954. As of 1954, he worked at the East German DEFA Studio for Feature Film as a location photographer and assistant cameraman. After an additional apprenticeship, he became a director of photography in 1965.

No biography currently available.

Slatan Dudow was born in Tsaribrod, Bulgaria, on January 30, 1903. Influenced by revolutionary ideas, Dudow moved to Berlin at nineteen in 1922. He abandoned his earlier plan to study architecture, and instead studied theater with Max Herrmann from 1925 to 1926. Dudow was also fascinated with film and became a film reviewer for a Bulgarian newspaper. He was on the set for the filming of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Fred Düren was born in Berlin on December 2, 1928. After WWII, he studied at the acting school of the Deutsches Theater from 1945 to 1947. In 1958, Düren joined the Deutsches Theater, after performing with the Berliner Ensemble. Düren is known for his exceptional interpretation of both classical and modern roles.

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.