DEFA-Studio für Wochenschau und Dokumentarfilme

This first co-production between the GDR and Great Britain is intended to contribute to an understanding of the situation and attitudes of millions of working people in opposing social orders. Using the example of shipyard workers, fishermen, the brigade and family of a trade union active cook and unemployed person of various ages and professions in Newcastle on the one hand and a brigade of crane operators of the Warnowwerft and fishermen of the Warnemünde cooperative on the other hand, insights into the way of life and attitudes of people of our time are to be conveyed.

Archive footage of bomb detonations during the Second World War combined with abstract graphic elements which show the destructive potential of modern nuclear missiles. Together the images are a silent warning of armament and war.

Posing as West German journalists, East German documentary filmmakers Heynowski and Scheumann pay a visit to the notorious Nazi-turned-mercenary Siegfried “Kongo” Müller, pump him with booze, and get him to talk about his life and war campaigns in Africa.

An international anthology about the struggles of female workers around the world.

The film is a reportage showing the help of workers from the GDR in the industrial reconstruction of Syria. We witness the friendly relationship between workers from both countries, who are jointly involved in the construction of the cotton spinning mill in Homs. In impressive pictures the exoticism of the environment and the mentality of the Syrian hosts is shown. At the same time it becomes clear that the workers from the GDR become 'ambassadors of the GDR' through their collegial behaviour and good work.

Documentary on the master composer, from a GDR point of view.

"GDR The uprising of June 17, 1953" - : Since its founding, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) has repeatedly struggled with domestic political problems. While the standard of living of the population in the western part of Germany steadily increased, it stagnated in the GDR . A one-sided, industry-oriented reconstruction policy, coupled with rapid militarization, weighed on the country's economy, which was already under pressure from Soviet reparations demands. A majority of the population did not identify with the socialist system, which accordingly stood on shaky ground.

The only documentary ever made by DEFA on the topic of homosexuality was this public education film commissioned by the Hygiene Museum Dresden and produced in cooperation with East German gay and lesbian activists. In interviews, GDR lesbians and gay men talk openly about their first sexual experiences and coming out. Though the film tries to convey an official GDR acceptance of homosexuality, they also talk about social discrimination against openly gay individuals.

The film draws attention to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, especially among adolescents and young adults, and identifies partner changes and alcohol as factors that promote the spread. As basic preventive information about the sexually transmitted diseases gonorrhea and syphilis, the film explains symptoms in men and women and possible consequences such as permanent infertility or agonizing infirmity.

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.

They are now no longer children. Young citizens distinguish themselves. The time before the Jugendweihe and its celebration. They visit Weimar, the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the Schwedt petrochemical combine, and decide to go into business after the eighth grade, stay until the tenth, or take the Abitur in the district town.

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

Documents important parts of the East German rock music scene of the late 1980s, from well-established bands like Silly, to underground rock bands like Feeling B. This road movie features young people using music to express their take on life, opposition to their parents' generation and opinions on the social and political climate in East Germany. It includes clips from concerts and interviews with fans and members of various bands, such as Feeling B's Christian Lorenz and Paul Landers, now members of Rammstein.

A brief history of the emergence and artistic innovations of tango in 19th-century Argentina and Europe. The film offers a mosaic of tango melodies, art works, dance performances, historical footage, photographs of Buenos Aires at the turn of the 20th century, and texts by Celedonio Flores and Enrique Santos Discépolo.

Five cameramen of the DEFA travel with the trawler ROS 206 to its fishing grounds in the Arctic Ocean. The journey to the grounds takes 5,5 days. Day and night the nets are thrown out and pulled aboard again when they are full. After three weeks of hard work the trawler returns to its home port. Here the fish are loaded into refrigerator cars, and the sailors enjoy some days of wll-earned rest.

The final exam of sixteen and seventeen year olds at the end of the 10th grade. The individual in the minutes in which he is supposed to show what he can do and who he is. A last class party before the community ends and one goes apart.

The film proves that the apparently ideally and extremely purposefully coordinated relationships between flowers and the insects that pollinate them are nothing other than the result of a very long period of natural selection and mutual adaptation. Phenomena that contradict the preservation of the species must die off. The example of the bee and the red clover illustrates that contradictory relationships can be cultivated artificially.