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.

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.

Leontes, king of Sicily, tries to convince his friend Polyxenes, king of Bohemia, to stay longer as his guest. But only Hermione, Leontes' wife, can talk Polyxenes into not leaving. Leontes gets suspicious. Is his wife having an affair with his friend? Leontes tries to find out about it...

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.

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

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

Documentary about a neck mill in Bulgaria

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.

Vacation in Sylt is a black and white compilation film about Heinz Reinefarth, a Nazi Party member, high SS police leader of Warthe, and later mayor (1951-1964) of Westerland/Sylt.

Director Junge was commissioned by the GDR in the country for the first time in the summer of 1970; his film In Syria auf Montage accompanies German engineers who train workers in the Homs textile factory. Shortly after filming ended, Hafez al-Assad put himself under the dictator. Twenty years later emerged ... the father stayed in the war over a youth club with Syrian orphans in Bad Saarow, whose fathers had died in the Lebanon war and accompanied them to Syria, where they were housed in separate, elite "schools of martyr children". Multi-faceted documents that oscillate between peaceful and tense, hopeful and unsettled.

How the class community is formed. The children's environment and the experiences and discoveries that the school gives them. They are reflected in the lessons. At the end of the school year they receive their first report card and are "Young Pioneers".

Around the festival week for the 675th anniversary of Golzow for GDR television a portrait of the village, its landscape and agriculture in the past and present. In sketches also the parents' generation and the current state of affairs in the lives of some of our "children of Golzow".

Martha Bieder is the last rubble-woman in Berlin Rummelsburg. Every day, rain or shine, she stands at the conveyor belt - as she has for decades - sorting through rubble. After a retirement party thrown for her by her male colleagues, she tells her story of being a rubble-woman in post-war Germany.

Documentary short about the construction of the Markersbach Pumped Storage Power Plant in East Germany.

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.

With films including the 'rubble woman' portrait Martha, the three-part experimental film cycle Potter's Stier, Venus nach Giorgione and Frau am Klavichord, the portrait of the artist Kurzer Besuch bei Hermann Glöckner, and also the documentaries Rangierer and Die Küche, noted for their outstanding sound and visuals, Jürgen Böttcher distances himself yet further from the didactic tone and abstract heroic representation of socialist films.

Documentary film about the Spanish Civil War.

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.