71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, 29 April – 4 May 2025
The Long Way to the Neighbour – GDR Films in Oberhausen
The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen examines German-German film history
The West German Educational Film Festival (from 1959: Short Film Festival) was founded in Oberhausen in 1954; the first films from the GDR were screened as early as 1955. Until 1990, more than 150 films from the GDR were screened in Oberhausen; nowhere else was East German filmmaking available to Western audiences with this continuity and breadth. Relations between the festival and the GDR were always complex, never free of conflict, but also very fertile. Oberhausen is now dedicating its big Theme programme to this little-explored part of its festival history under the title “The Long Way to the Neighbour – GDR Films in Oberhausen.”
Compiled by curator Felix Mende, the selection comprises numerous works from the GDR that were particularly important to Oberhausen: from the equally inventive and ethically highly ambivalent agitation films produced by Studio Heynowski & Scheumann to the essayistic first film school exercises by Helke Misselwitz through to experimental works by Jürgen Böttcher or Lutz Dammbeck which were invited by the Festival but not approved by the GDR authorities. Thus the programme, which is expected to be attended by many guests, will draw a clearer picture of how this German-German relationship helped shape film history. The section will comprise ten film programmes and a discussion.
The presence of the GDR in Oberhausen was never a matter of course but always a political issue, a seismograph for the self-images of both German states. There was no lack of attempts to influence the festival. Despite frequent disagreements, Oberhausen always kept its contacts alive, always on the lookout for independent artistic positions that pushed against the clearly demarcated ideological boundaries. This yields an astonishing variety in the films presented at Oberhausen. Illuminating this field of tension, which hitherto has only been examined on an academic level, is the objective of the Theme programme “The Long Way to the Neighbour – GDR Films in Oberhausen.”
Films in the programme
Martins Tagebuch (Martin’s Diary), Heiner Carow, GDR 1955
Vom Lebensweg des Jazz (The Life of Jazz), Wolfgang Bartsch/Peter Ulbrich, GDR 1956
Two films in which the political pressure from both sides was inscribed: Heavily censored in the GDR, their exploitation in West Germany was limited by the Interministerielle Ausschuss für Ost-West-Filmfragen (Interministerial Committee for East-West Film Issues). In fact, both were about the big issues: the approach to education and culture.
Kommando 52, Walter Heynowski, GDR 1965
Wink vom Nachbarn (A Hint from the Neighbour), Harry Hornig, GDR 1966
After Oberhausen rejected Kommando 52, an equally questionable and rousing pamphlet against the Federal Republic of Germany, the answer promptly followed: a withering smear review of the 1966 Oberhausen festival.
Struga – Bilder einer Landschaft (Struga – Portrait of a Region), Konrad Herrmann, GDR 1972
Konfrontation – Rekonstruktion eines Dichters (Confrontation – Reconstruction of a Poet), Konrad Herrmann, GDR 1976
Two extraordinary lyrical and cryptic film essays guiding the viewer through devastated Sorbian landscapes and apocalyptic Berlin ruins.
Haus.Frauen – Eine Collage (House.Wives – A Collage), Helke Misselwitz, GDR 1982
Hinter den Fenstern (Behind Windows), Petra Tschörtner, GDR 1984
Two female university students dare to take a look behind the facades: In 15 minutes, a woman in an abandoned Wilhelminian villa lives through almost a whole century, while three couples in their flats in a new development cope with their very contemporary problems, as eloquently as bluntly.
Feierabend (After Work), Karl Gass, GDR 1964
Martha, Jürgen Böttcher, GDR 1978
Images of heavy industrial work that the Ruhr region, too, could relate to: Karl Gass may talk about the GDR’s „new human”, but the West German film critics noted that this film could just as well have been shot in Oberhausen. In the meantime, Jürgen Böttcher pares down the mythically charged image of the “Trümmerfrau” (rubble woman) to a human scale.
Die Prüfung – Chronik einer Schulklasse (The Exam – Chronicle of a School Class), Winfried Junge, GDR 1972
Rock'n'Roll, Jörg Foth, 1987, 20 Min.
The best valve to let off steam between exhausting school exams and hard work on the job: dancing. A programme about, and for, young adults, in cooperation with the Oberhausen Children’s and Youth Cinema.
Aber wenn man so leben will wie ich (But When You Want to Live My Way), Bernd Sahling, GDR 1988
Bahnpostfahrer (Railway Post Office Driver), Herwig Kipping, GDR 1980
La Rotonda / Vicenza – In Erinnerung an Prof. Lothar Kühne (La Rotonda / Vicenza – In Memory of Prof. Lothar Kühne), Roland Steiner, GDR 1990
Biographies that couldn’t work in the GDR: a punk, a worker who dreams, a philosopher who thinks outside the margins of actually existing socialism.
Zug in die Ferne (Train to Distant Lands), Andreas Dresen, GDR 1990
Das war’s, Brüder und Schwestern – Die East-Side-Story (That’s It, Brothers and Sisters – The East Side Story), Christoph Albert, Germany 1990
No metaphor was used as often in the GDR films of the period of reunification as that of trains. Sometimes they don’t come and leave the people waiting on the platform wistfully behind, sometimes they derail and run over the whole film crew, complete with the sanctimonious reunification kitsch.
Supported with funds from the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany.
Stills from the programme can be downloaded here:
https://www.kurzfilmtage.de/en/press/#t733
Accreditation deadline for the 71st International Short Film Festival Oberhausen is 23 April 2025.
Oberhausen, 25 February 2025
Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, phone +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de