ARTE DOCUMENTARY
The documentary film by Daniel Guthmann and Joachim Palutzki introduces four photographers who worked in the GDR and whose work has been rediscovered in recent years: Eberhard Klöppel, who grew up in Mansfelder Land and, as a press photographer for the “Neue Berliner Illustrierte”, realized many photo reportages that today offer diverse insights into the reality of people’s lives in the GDR. Dietmar Riemann from Hartha in Saxony, who became increasingly critical of the state in which he lived. In 1986, he applied to leave the country, which was not approved until 1989. During the period of waiting and uncertainty, he wrote a diary of over 1000 pages and secretly photographed the Berlin Wall and border fortifications.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Barbara Wolff, who was born in Brandenburg, documented life in the countryside and everyday village life, many aspects of which seemed archaic and timeless despite the socialist transformation of agricultural production.
The Berlin-born photographer Christiane Eisler came into contact with the punk movement in the early 1980s and portrayed one of the first punk bands in the GDR: Wutanfall, like the living conditions in the educational institutions to which young punks were forcibly committed in the 1980s.
Available in the Arte Mediathek until 12/2024
