Recent cinema meets "old" DEFA films and Christoph Hochhäusler presents: To mark the 70th anniversary of DEFA's foundation (May 2016), the DEFA Foundation has invited young directors to present a DEFA film which particularly impressed and inspired them. Using cool, stylized imagery and avant-garde montage techniques, DER FALL GLEIWITZ (The Gleiwitz Case, Gerhard Klein, GDR 1961) depicted the attack on the radio station in the town of Gleiwitz that was used to justify Germany's invasion of Poland. Clips from Leni Riefenstahl's films and excerpts from Nazi newsreels were used to expose the aesthetic strategies of Nazi propaganda. DER NACKTE MANN AUF DEM SPORTPLATZ (The Naked Man on the Sportsground, Konrad Wolf, GDR 1973) used laconic humor to explore the explosive topic of "the artist in socialist society." It tells the story of a solitary sculptor (Kurt Böwe), of his encounters with the people and their reaction to his works. (jr) (4.1.)
