The most comprehensive documentation of events surrounding the 1989 Monday demonstrations in Leipzig, the centerpiece of the citizens' movement that led to the fall of the Wall. The film includes interviews with demonstrators, members of the citizens' rights movement, officials and bystanders in East Germany's peaceful revolution. This DVD also features a poetic 1991 documentary on the after effects of German unification, Eastern landscape, by Eduard...

Two roommates in a private sanatorium in early-1950s East Germany are extremely different from one another. Josef is a communist policeman, while Hubertus is a Lutheran vicar. While Josef reads The Communist manifesto, Hubertus prepares his sermon. Above their beds hang Stalin and Christ. The film offers both suspense and comedy, as the two begrudgingly develop tolerance and respect for one another. Orginally East German officials had not been open...

Filmed as the GDR crumbled, this somber, finely drawn portrait of life in East Berlin depicts a young architect whose life and goals are strangled by communist dogma represented by the older generation. One of the first fiction films to deal with both the GDR and unification period. Daniel feels like a stranger in his own land. His architectural plans for a new development have been rejected for not complying with standardized designs. His colleagues...

By the time the DEFA Studio for Animation Film closed in 1992, it had produced more than 800 shorts in a wide variety of styles and techniques. The 16 animation films included in this collection were directed by 8 different animators between 1974 and 1990, and give a taste of animation production in East Germany. Established in 1955, the studio initially produced shorts exclusively for children. During the 1970s and '80s, however, films targeting...

Hamburg, Germany 1934: An executioner is needed. Teetjen (Erwin Geschonneck) makes the biggest mistake of his life. Because his butcher shop is facing bankruptcy, he agrees to execute a group of political prisoners for the Nazis. Once this becomes known, Teetjen's life falls apart. The Axe of Wandsbek was the only DEFA film made by Falk Harnack, a former anti-Nazi resistance fighter who was interested in exploring the involvement of the middle class...

This historical satire, based on Heinrich Mann's world-famous novel, Der Untertan, is ranked by film critics among the 100 Most Significant German Films of all time. In Mann's biting critique of conservative Wilhelmine Germany, written during WWI, Diederich Hessling learns an important lesson for an ambitious man: one must first serve power to gain power for oneself. From then on, his modus operandi is to bow to superiors and kick underlings.

Based on the records of the Nuremberg trial of the chemical giant IG Farben; a story about the collaboration between international corporations and Nazi scientists, whose research contributed to the death of millions. Musical score by Hanns Eisler, electronic sound by Oskar Sala (Hitchcock's The Birds) and script by Friedrich Wolf. The chemist Dr. Hans Scholz lives through a tortuous political transformation and maturation process. Eventually, he...

Lynn is the most meticulous chambermaid in her hotel, leaving no shelf undusted, no sheet untucked. Crippled by shyness, she rummages through guests' belongings and even hides under their beds, vicariously experiencing their conversations, meals and discreet interludes. After clandestinely observing an S&M session, Lynn discovers the phone number of the call girl, Chiara. Bold and unrestrained, Chiara soon draws Lynn out of her shell, opening her...

Throughout his creative life, artist and filmmaker Jürgen Böttcher explored the theme of art and artists. This DVD includes six filmic milestones on this topic: Three of many (1961), Shunters (1984), Hermann Glöckner : a short visit (1984) and the Transformation trilogy (1984). One of (East) Germany's most important documentarists, Böttcher created over 40 films with a painter's eye. His debut film about his art students, Three of many, was banned...

A web of family secrets unravels in this moving documentary following a family fractured by war. Two brothers, Izak and Shep, were born inside the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp in 1945 and separated as babies, never told of the other’s existence. Nearly 70 years later, the discovery of family records leads the brothers to an emotional reunion with their elderly mother, Aida, who hid more from Izak and Shep than just each other. Official Selection...