Films from the German Democratic Republic, focusing on contemporary issues and shot primarily on location, provide Western viewers with a flavor of life in East Germany and a rare look at its day-to-day concerns. Finely crafted, they also offer an unpretentious approach to dramatic filmmaking and often feature superb performances by theatrically trained actors.
In the last decade, DEFA (the state film studio) has produced films in a variety of styles ranging from satire to cinema verité. But social realism--on which DEFA was founded at the close of World War II, when previously suppressed anti-Fascist artists emerged to confront harsh realities in German society--still retains its stylistic and theoretical prominence.
Toward a New Social Cinema is a series of films made in the German Democratic Republic between 1975 and 1982, programmed for an American tour and circulated by the American Film Institute in...
