Christian Lehmann

Seventh and last Wittstock film.

A documentary and film essay about the artist scene in East Berlin during the 1950s.

Sixth Wittstock film.

Olivier Rohan, a young doctor, has just opened a general practice. However, having only a small clientele, he continues to work in the hospital's emergency room. One night, he will witness the unnatural death of a young man.

Sketches from a store cashier's everyday life.

Documentary film.

Documentary film.

A documentary about German director Konrad Wolf (1925–1982).

Wittstock an der Dosse is located in the German state Mark Brandenburg, apx. 90 kilometers from Berlin. Since 1974 Volker Koepp visited the town several times to examine life of the female workers in the textile industry. He interviewed them about their work, spare-time, thoughts and feelings. Three of them were questioned repeatedly for a long-time overview. This is the outcome of 10 years of Koepp's work. Written by Tom Zoerner

Nine very private encounters with different people of the post-war generation and their memories of childhood and youth. Among others, the guitarist and singer Peter "Caesar" Gläser and the actress Christine Harbort. Roland Steiner asked his contemporaries about - "What we remember ...". All interviewees are as old as the state they live in. Nine CVs from the GDR are described. They have different professions, from skilled worker and scientist, nurse and saleswoman, actress or rock musician, even a minstrel is included. They remember what shaped them: Family, school, birthdays and hot summers, the happy moments and their own failures.

“We no longer stand before a choice between peace and war, but between peace and annihilation (Brecht 1947)”, one of the posters in the Berlin Alexanderplatz underground station reads. In autumn 1981, the Berlin Art Academy had organised a poster competition on the subject of “Peace for the World”. The camera, and along with it the viewers, become waiters and observers.

Documentary about the small city of Rheinsberg, once the summer residence of Prussian princes. Average working class people comment on the history of this special place.

Documentary about three painters painting cities.

Documentary about three painters painting cities.

Fourth Wittstock film.

Agricultural scientist and mother Isolde struggles with the dicrepancies between her personal convictions and the political realities in East Germany.

36 year old welder Karin works at an agricultural factory in Mecklenburg, Germany.

A documentary about the village Kienitz at the river Oder, about the people, their life, their history.

A documentary about the village Kienitz at the river Oder, about the people, their life, their history.

Documentary about the sisters Lene and Berta who live in a village in Thuringia.

Social, cultural, and historical changes in a village, the first film of Koepp's “landscape” series.

Volker Koepp's second Wittstock film.

DEFA documentary about various summer workers in Siberia.

Documentary about the German poet Erich Weinert.

A biographical documentary about the Bulgarian born film director Slatan Dudow (1903–1963).

A documentary dedicated to the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students held in East Berlin in the summer of 1973.

Portrait of 80 year old Gustav J., born in Lithuania, who became a blacksmith and whose paths of life led him to East Prussia, Russia and finally to Germany.

Volker Koepp's video essay honoring the German poet Johannes Bobrowski (1917–1965).

Documentary about juvenile delinquency in East Germany.

Young East German men starting their compulsary 18-month military service at a Rostock garrison.

The core of this most personal of the Thorndikes’ projects are Annelie’s diary entries: Her story is to be the starting point for a kind of all-German ‘Heimatfilm’ that praises the utopian power of the GDR and sharply condemns Federal German wrongs, but finds transcendent beauty on both sides of the wall. Over the course of production, however, the visionary dimension of the project was progressively trimmed down, though it’s still tangible everywhere in the compromised final version: The intensity of its pathos is both oppressive and enchanting; some historical simplifications and ideological twists and bends may be hair-raising, but they still achieve the desired effect.

This black and white documentary film reports from the Berlin Zoo, located in the Friedrichsfelde district of the Lichtenberg district, was opened in 1955 and is the largest landscape animal garden in Europe with an area of 160 hectares. With shots worth seeing, you can experience the animals in their enclosures and spacious free running areas. The film gets along completely without commentary and directs the concentrated view to hippos, parrots, camels, red deer, bison, llamas, kangaroos, rhinoceroses; lynxes, birds, leopards, tigers, lions, polar bears and crocodiles.

The film’s subtitle identifies it as a “study of the constructive discontent of a composer”. It is a portrait of the pugnacious musician Paul Dessau (1894 – 1979), who was controversial in East Germany, as a teacher. It follows the composer as he rehearses the “Bach Variations” with the Berlin state opera orchestra, as well during classes at the Polytechnic School I in Zeuthen, where he strives to teach the students a critical attitude. In an interview, Dessau bemoans the simplification of artistic media and elucidates the meaning and necessity of “hard sounds in an era that is not soft”. As we see when he works, “pleasure requires effort” … “art is never comfortable. Building socialism is not comfortable at all. That’s why I’m in favour of the uncomfortable”.

Impressions of a playground in Berlin. It is also the playing field of the elderly chess and card players - counterpoint to the argument of isolation and emptiness in old age.

A film about Jewish cemeteries in East Berlin, based on a screenplay by Günter Kunert, with text by Rabbi Martin Riesenburger. There are shots of gravestones and inscriptions – deported, murdered, perished; in Auschwitz or Theresienstadt. Commentary reminds us of the victims – "in 1933, 160,564 Jewish citizens lived in Berlin; in 1945, 3,500".

Summertime in Prerow at the Baltic Sea. A cheerful film with the spirit of the sixties.

This black and white documentary film reports on a brigade of women, they are the "stars" of a Berlin light bulb factory. What is striking is the cordiality and good cooperation within the women's group, despite their monotonous work in the control area in the production of tungsten wires, also called filaments. Original tones are inserted to convey the joys, the cheerfulness and quick-wittedness that they have despite their burden of family and work. A problem of the wrong way of counting the female workers is openly addressed by the brigade leader and in a countercut Inge introduces her baby to her colleagues in the company. Everything seems like one big family and nobody can really imagine being without this work.

At the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost an der Oder, a new blast furnace is being moved to replace a burnt-out one. 2000 tons have to be moved 18 meters: Three times we hear it in the commentary. Master Klaus is now in command. His orders are to be obeyed at all costs. Men at work: tense faces, examining hands, the sound of screeching winds and steel cables stretched to breaking point. Everything is going well, and it is a new best performance: The downtime of the plant has been reduced from 80 to 40 days, the commentary says.

Documentary film about the Spanish Civil War.

A cinematic visit to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The camera usually observes the visitors and paints their views on scenes of the ensemble of figures. The amazement at the beauty and grace of the antique sculptures is reflected in the faces of the viewers and emotion is palpable. The visitors come from all over the world - one sees Indians, Asians, Blacks. All age groups are represented, from children to old people. They come individually or in groups and communicate about what they see. The film gets along without any comment. You see more pictures of the visitors than of the altar. This means that it is important for the film to show the cultural interest of the people. Gerhard Rosenfeld creates atmospheric music with a classical feel to it. An early and extremely interesting work by the great documentary filmmaker Jürgen Böttcher.

Böttchers film showcases three young workers who learn how to paint, draw, and make sculptures out of stone. The film generated a storm of mistrust, as there is no leading communist party, and the three individuals live blithely and independently of the official dictates. It became one of the first DEFA documentary productions that were not allowed to be shown.