With the young Friedrich Engel’s letters and drawings from the years between 1838 and 1842, a unique cinematic portrait is created. The viewer thus gets to know the young Engels personally, learning about the significant moments of his development from a bourgeois-liberal upbringing to the theoretical partner of Karl Marx. Later be awarded the Gold Dove at the International Leipzig Documentary and Short Film Week.
This short, animated piece of agitprop fiercely expresses the hopes of the Chilean people.
The very first images in the film set unprecedented standards in East German animated film: a Buñuelean eye that fills the entire screen, real-life sequences of fleeing animals and a sound collage running contrary to what is seen on the screen. This also extends to the protagonist of the film, a head on a foot without a body or arms who pads wearily through the depressing surroundings. Upon seeing various figures in the sky, he begins to copy their movements. To his surprise, he himself manages to grow wings and takes to the skies. But his attempt at flight ends in a sobering manner however, as it is revealed that flying creatures are just restricted in their range.
Animated fairy tale about the mountain ghost Rübezahl and his dealing with a thieving shoemaker.
When Martin returns from war, he finds that nothing is the way it once was. He watches a few remaining villagers leave offerings in the town square for a giant monster, and he sees that whoever has nothing left for the monster is turned into stone. To make matters worse, Martin finds out that his fiancee, Maria, is being held captive in the monster's Black Fortress.
A little beetle plans to take revenge on an eagle family for killing his friends. Although the eagle family teams up with the powerful Zeus, the little beetle finds a cunning way to fight them.
Puppets play the story based on the famous children's song.
A little duckling is left behind and meets other animals of the forest. Together they try to find out what the duckling is best at: digging, climbing or jumping?
For the multimedia exhibition Tangenten I (Tangents I), Dammbeck and co-organizer, sculptor and painter Frieder Heinze had planned to collaborate on a film that would combine non-camera animation with 35mm footage of a train ride between the two Dresden districts of Radebeul and Pieschen. When the exhibition was banned in 1978, Heinze turned to other projects, but Dammbeck continued working on the film by himself. Metamorphoses I—the first experimental film ever to be shown publicly in East Germany—marks the filmic beginning of Dammbeck’s long-term art project the Herakles-Konzept (Hercules Concept).
Somewhere in an unknown land of turtles, an old turtle wants to see the world. After hearing a cancan record she wants to dance and decides to take a ship to Europe - to Paris. Once there, she learns how to do the cancan, wears sequinned dresses, stiletto-heeled shoes and net stockings. She loses these wonderful things on her journey home but she still has her memories and the zest for life.
The fumes emanating from a traffic jam make everybody, and every animal, cough.
The film shows a humorous take on moments from the life of Karl Marx over the course of a quarter century.
Part of the Filopat and Patafil series of East German animated short films.
Caliph Harun al-Rashid was turned into a stork by a power-greedy rival. Only with the help of his wise vizier and a beautiful princess is he able to escape the spell. Based on a fairy tale by Wilhelm Hauff.
