PROGRESS FILMS AVAILABLE ON ONESEARCH TO CELEBRATE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF BERLIN WALL
PROGRESS, one of the largest German film distributors, was founded in 1950 in East-Berlin. The collection includes the complete film heritage of East-Germany, as well as more than 17.000 theatrical films available in 4K.
PROGRESS was the only film distributor in the German Democratic Republic and brought around 12,000 films to the country's 830 cinemas. Almost half of them were feature films and documentaries by DEFA, the only film studio in the GDR. The DEFA documentaries and newsreels show the 20th century world from an Eastern perspective. They cover all areas of life, from very private moments to big politics, from art to industry, from propaganda to revealing reality.
This year November 9 marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today Europe has grown together. But even though 500 million people lived east of the Iron Curtain, little of their memories remain in our collective memory. To understand today's world, we need a deeper look into the complex past. What seems to have been lost in Europe's collective memory has been preserved by PROGRESS, the former film distributor of the GDR. The PROGRESS collection includes the complete film heritage of East-Germany, as well as more than 17.000 theatrical films available in 4K. The DEFA documentaries and newsreels show the 20th century world from an Eastern perspective. They cover all areas of life, from very private moments to big politics, from art to industry, from propaganda to revealing reality. This fantastic collection reflects everyday life in the East; the tensions between communist utopia and escape from the system. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 led PROGRESS in a new direction: on behalf of the DEFA Foundation, it began marketing the only cohesive collection of films that showed a now entirely non-existent country.
Collection Highlights:
“Die Mauer” by director Jürgen Böttcher is a haunting film - partly experimental in character - about the Berlin Wall, in the centre of the city at Potsdamer Platz and at the Brandenburg Gate. A film about their last days, their demolition, which the viewer experiences sensually. A film whose expressive images and collage-like sound levels awaken the associative forces of the viewer. A film whose faces and scenes of current events are impressively extended by projections of historical sequences onto the remains of this inhuman building.
In this DEFA feature film by famous East German film director Konrad Wolf we meet pop singer Sunny from Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg who plays with a band through villages and small towns. She longs for happiness and recognition as a personality.
Dialog mit Grenzsoldaten (1967)
In this documentary film from 1967 Reinhard Laske (border soldier of the National People's Army (NVA), who serves on the border to West Berlin is interviewed and presented. The interview takes place in a relaxed conversation. His mother, his girlfriend and his department manager are also interviewed. The film concludes with the oath of allegiance of the border guards and the peaceful life of the people in the streets of East Berlin.
This colour documentary film reports about the committed fashion designer Christiane Stürmer who is responsible for the development and design of youth fashion at the VEB "Shanty Rostock". The difficulties of fashion design in the context of the planned economy as well as the lack of acceptance by young people of the goods ultimately offered are shown.
The collection is available to view on our OneSearch platform, and will be licensed directly from PROGRESS.
For more information, please contact:
Kerstin Lommatzsch, Sales Executive
t: +49 (0)30 240 03 304