Program C Traces of East Germany
Now that almost twenty years have passed since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the former East Germany is even becoming an object of nostalgic retrospection. Here we present films that confront one more past that the reunified Germany is faced with: the various issues left behind by the former East Germany. We see the negative legacy left behind by a state surveillance system centered around the Stasi of the Ministry for State Security. The economic gap that spreads out between the citizens of former East and former West Germany is still unresolved today. In this program we retrace the tracks of the former East Germany from a post-reunification viewpoint, including relevant films screened at earlier editions of the YIDFF.
Last to Know
Jeder schweigt von etwas anderem- GERMANY / 2006 / German / Color / Video / 72 min / Subtitled in English
Directors: Marc Bauder, Dörte Franke
Photography: Börres Weiffenbach
Editing: Rune Schweitzer
Sound: Mario Köhler, Marc von Stürler
Producer: Marc Bauder
Production Company, Source: Bauderfilm
This film follows three cases of people (and their families) being imprisoned for anti-establishment activities in East Germany and exiled to West Germany. The memories that each of them holds remain as a past that can’t be shared even with other members of the family. The film shows their struggle of wanting to speak up in public, but not being able to start telling the story.
Marc Bauder
Born in 1974 in Stuttgart, Marc Bauder founded the production company Bauderfilm in 1999. He has directed and produced several films with Dörte Franke, including Grow or Go (2003) and The Communist (2006). 
Dörte Franke
Born in 1974 in Leipzig, Dörte Franke emigrated from East Germany to West Germany in 1981. She has also worked as a novelist and journalist. |
I Love You All
Aus Liebe zum Volk- GERMANY, FRANCE / 2004 / German / Color, B&W / 35mm (1:1.66) / 88 min / Subtitled in English
Directors: Eyal Sivan, Audrey Maurion
Script: Eyal Sivan, Audrey Maurion, Aurélie Tyszblat
Photography: Peter Badel
Editing: Audrey Maurion
Sound: Werner Phillipp
Producers: Gilles-Marie Tiné, Thomas Kufus
Production Company, Source: zero film
World Sales: Telepool
Co-directed by Eyal Sivan, who directed The Specialist (1999), and Audrey Maurion, who did the editing for that film, this documentary depicts the testimony of a man who blindly continued working for the Stasi in the Ministry for State Security for twenty years. Mainly using archive footage shot by Stasi surveillance cameras, it shows the reality of the surveillance system.
Eyal Sivan
Born in 1964 in Haifa, Eyal Sivan grew up in Jerusalem. In 1985, he left Israel for France. His works include Izkor, The Slaves of Memory (1991), Jerusalem, Borderline Syndrome (1994), Aqabat-Jaber: Peace with No Return? (1995), and Au sommet de la descente (2001). Route 181—Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel (2003), which he codirected with Michel Khleifi, won the Mayor’s Prize at YIDFF 2005. 
Audrey Maurion
Born in 1966, Audrey Maurion studied philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris. She has worked as a film editor for a number of fiction films and documentaries. |
The Kick
Der Kick- GERMANY / 2005 / German / Color / Video (Original: 35mm) / 82 min / Subtitled in Japanese
Director: Andres Veiel
Script: Andres Veiel, Gesine Schmidt
Photography: Jörg Jeshel, Henning Brümmer
Editing: Katja Dringenberg
Sound: Titus Maderlechner
Cast: Susanne-Marie Wrage, Markus Lerch
Producer: Brigitte Kramer
Production Company: Nachtaktivfilm
World Sales: Deckert Distribution
Source: Goethe-Institut
In 2002, in a small town north of Berlin, a 16-year-old boy was brutally murdered by three other boys. Andres Veiel, director of Black Box Germany, reviews this case in an experimental way. Using records of the trial and interviews of people involved with the incident, he restructures the testimony, having two actors play all of the roles of the various people involved.
| Andres Veiel
Andres Veiel is also the director of Black Box Germany, in Program B of “Facing the Past.” |
Locked Up Time
Verriegelte Zeit- GERMANY / 1990 / German / B&W / 35mm (1:1.33) / 90 min / Subtitled in Japanese
Director: Sibylle Schönemann
Photography: Thomas Plenert
Editing: Gudrun Steinbruck
Sound: Ronald Gohlke
Music: Thomas Kahane
Producers: Bernd Burkhardt, Alfred Hurmer
Production Company: Alert Film
Sibylle Schönemann was a film director for the DEFA studio in East Germany. In 1984, she and her husband were arrested by the East German security police, put in detention, and exiled to West Germany. After the reunification, Schönemann visits police officers, lawyers, officials, and others involved in her case, and questions the legitimacy of her arrest. Winner of the Mayor’s Prize at YIDFF ’91.
Sibylle Schönemann
Born in 1953 in Berlin, Sibylle Schönemann worked as an assistant director of feature films at the DEFA studio. After her deportation to West Germany, she worked as a playwright in Hamburg. |
Screenplay: The Times—Three Decades with the Children of Golzow and the DEFA Documentary Film Studio
Drehbuch: Die Zeiten—Drei Jahrzehnte mit den Kindern von Golzow und der DEFA- GERMANY / 1993 / German / Color, B&W / 35mm (1:1.33) / 284 min / Subtitled in Japanese
Directors, Script: Barbara & Winfried Junge
Photography: Hans-Eberhard Leupold, Harald Klix, and others
Editing: Barbara Junge
Sound: Hans-Jochen Huschenbett, Eberhard Schwarz, Erhard Dormeyer, Peter Pflughaupt, Patric Stanislawski, and others
Music: Gerhard Rosenfeld
Producer: Klaus Volkenborn
Production Company: JOURNAL-FILM
In 1961, right after the Berlin Wall was constructed, production began on a documentary film on children living in the East German town of Golzow. It follows their lives as they enter school, graduate, find employment, and marry, through the collapse of the Berlin Wall. This film depicts the history of Germany through these children, and at the same time it can also be seen as a visual history of DEFA, the biggest film studio of the former East Germany. Winner of the Runner-up Prize and the Citizens’ Prize at YIDFF ’95.
Winfried Junge
Born in 1935 in Berlin, Winfried Junge has directed films about the children in Golzow since 1961. His latest work, And If They Haven’t Passed Away . . . The Children of Golzow (2006), will be the last in the historic series. 
Barbara Junge
Born in 1943, Barbara Junge entered DEFA in 1969. As a co-director, she has edited all of Winfried Junge’s films since 1983. |
Sweep It Up, Swig It Down
Kehrein, Kehraus- GERMANY / 1997 / German / Color, B&W / 35mm (1:166) / 70 min / Subtitled in English and Japanese
Director: Gerd Kroske
Script: Gerd Kroske, Manuela Martinson
Photography: Dieter Chill
Editing: Karin Gerda Schöning
Music: Todenhöfer
Sound: Uve Haußig
Production Company: realistfilm
In Sweeping (1990), director Gerd Kroske depicted three street sweepers in the former East German city of Leipzig. This film shows what has happened to these three since then. Interwoven with scenes of construction sites and street sweeping in the mechanized present-day Leipzig, it depicts how each of them copes with the harsh city life and the problems it holds. Winner of the Runner-up Prize at YIDFF ’99.
Gerd Kroske
Born in 1958 in Dessau, Gerd Kroske began working as a screenwriter for the DEFA Documentary Film Studio in Berlin in 1987. His major works include Sweeping (1990), Galera (1996–97) and Sweep It Up, Again (2006). |