STRASSENBEKANNTSCHAFT (They Meet in the Street, East Germany, 1948) Commissioned to make a film raising awareness about the risks of STDs in the immediate post-war period, the director Peter Pewas succeeded in making a period film that portrays the deprivations and the spiritual and material paucity of those living in Berlin's rubble in a realistic manner. Both this "genre hybrid" and the life story of this almost forgotten director are symptomatic for the transitionary nature of post-war cinema, in which filmic traditions and innovations merged, as did continuities and and new beginnings in production conditions. Prelude to the "Kino in Transit. 1945: Between yesterday and today" program. (ah)
