Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 16, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The programme shown at the 1989 Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival provides exciting testimony to the awakening and upheaval of the period before German reunification. The upheaval films are part of the Film Transition | Transition Films special programme of the Film Festival within the Arts Festival.
The upheaval films will be presented on Monday, October 19, 2009, at 8:00 p.m. in the auditorium of Bauhaus University Weimar, Steubenstraße 6.
Since 1961, HFF had been able to show student films at the Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Film (DOK). Whether film exercise, main examination film or diploma film, HFF’s special events often provided idiosyncratic insights into a country called the German Democratic Republic. With the then rector’s advocacy of glasnost and perestroika, screenings of the university programme became a sought-after festival event from 1986. For the first time, the film festival is rescreening the HFF programme shown in Leipzig in 1989, with films recounting awakening and upheaval.
The programme comprises nine films by HFF students, shot on video and 16 mm. The works shown are Upheaval 89 — Dresden (Thomas Rist, Katja Hofmann, Volker Langhoff, René Jung, Sabine Wittig, Thomas Eichberg), Long Live the R… (Leipzig in Autumn) (Jörn Zielke), 10 Days in October (Thomas Frick), Blooming Garden in Brandenburg Sand (Henry Köhler), Yeah Yeah…No No… (Thomas Frick), Beyond Klein Wanzleben (Andreas Dresen), Waste Paper 7/10/89 (Kerstin Süske) and Tschhinson — Friendship (Henry Köhler).
Afterwards, Lothar Bisky, then rector of the Potsdam University of Film and Television, Dieter Wiedemann, the current president of HFF, and three former HFF students discuss the functions and potential of documentary during times of upheaval. The discussion includes Wolfgang Kissel, Director of the Bauhaus Film Institute and a DAAD scholarship recipient at HFF during the GDR era, along with Thomas Frick, then a directing student, and Frank Sputh, who studied cinematography at HFF.
With the “Film Festival within the Arts Festival,” the Bauhaus Film Institute at Bauhaus University Weimar presents a programme devoted to film within the “pèlerinages” Weimar Arts Festival. According to the Film Institute, until October 28 there will be high-calibre cinema and special events at unusual locations, accompanied by film discussions with prominent figures.
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