Resurfaced German films brings history to life in WENDE Flicks film series

Around a time when most IU students were just born, East German filmmakers were documenting and filming the historical events surrounding the time leading up to the fall of the Berlin wall. These films were lost amidst the social change in Germany but have resurfaced in Bloomington.

The first of 13 films in the four-month film series “WENDE Flicks – Last films from East Germany” will begin at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 in the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

“We have a chance to look at both sides, East Germany and West Germany, with fairness,” project director Brigitta Wagner said.

The Movie Partner Project collaboration with the Buskirk-Chumley Theater was the appropriate way to build a relationship between the University and community, Wagner said.

“We want this to be a community event where students share what they are doing on campus with people outside the Sample Gates,” Wagner said.
“Coming Out,” the third film in the series, was the first gay film in East Germany and is incorporated into the Pride Film Festival, she said.

“It is hard to imagine what time was like for these people, but in the films we can see that they are dealing with social issues, plight of women, romance, the youth and a need for change,” Wagner said.

Wagner offers two courses in Germanic studies, “Back in the GDR” and “Cinema of the WENDE.”

Graduate student and DEFA Publicity Coordinator Olivia Landry moved to Bloomington from Montreal in the fall of 2009 to begin a Ph.D. in Germanic Studies and film at IU.

“In Montreal there were art house cinemas and international and independent film festivals, but Bloomington doesn’t have that, so I hope this gets more people involved,” Landry said.

It is just a coincidence, she said, that the DEFA Project coincided with the IU Cinema that is set to open by fall 2010.

Wagner said the reason Bloomington was neglected with access to films was because there was not the right space and because people did not believe there was an audience for the film.

“What they don’t understand is that when people don’t have the chance to see the films they can’t develop the curiosity,” she said.

To get these films to Indiana, she said, people have to make something much bigger than saying rent some DVDs and watch them together. She said it needs to be made into an event.

The first film in the series is “The Wall,” and it is about how the wall was a symbol for the division between East and West Germany.

“We know it existed, but it is hard to find remnants of it so all you have are these images,” she said.

Wagner said any student interested in history, traveling, politics or arts should be going to see these films.

“When I was in college, I had the opportunity to see crazy films from India to Russia to Korea and it really opened my mind of the world,” she said. “Students should have this opportunity too.”

With last year being the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, Landry said people are starting to think even more about what really happened.

“It is more about getting them interested in film socially and historically.”

DEFA Outrearch Coordinator Troy Byler is organizing the high school outreach Student Symposium, on April 23 and 24, which is intended to introduce high school teachers and students to what was going on during 1989-90, the WENDE Flicks and to the higher education opportunities offered at IU.

The international symposium “Making Culture ReVisible: East German Cinema after Unification,” from April 22 to 25, will bring outside experts on the film series, featuring film scholars. The series is scheduled to bring famous screenwriters, including Wolfgang Kohlhaase and Thomas Kruger, the former mayor of East Berlin from 1974-1990.