DEFA Film Library


The DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is the only archive and research center outside of Germany devoted to a broad spectrum of filmmaking from and related to the former East Germany. DEFA was the state owned film company of the GDR. The non-profit organization houses an extensive collection of 35mm and 16mm prints, dcps, DVDs, books, periodicals and articles. Students are involved in all aspects of the archive's research, outreach and teaching activities and also gain valuable non-academic experience in subtitling and library, conference and arts management. In order to fulfill its dual mission—to make DEFA films available and better known, and to broaden understanding of filmmaking in the GDR by interdisciplinary critical scholarship—the DEFA Film Library undertakes a range of scholarly and support activities.

About the DEFA Film Library

History

The DEFA Film Library at UMass Amherst was founded by Barton Byg, professor of film and German Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in the late 1980s. The signing of an UMass memorandum on September 23, 1993 marks the DEFA Film Library's official founding. Byg's idea was to make films from the East German DEFA Studios more available and widely known in North America and to broaden popular and scholarly understanding of filmmaking in the GDR by critically exploring its aesthetic, political and ideological bases.
DEFA stands for Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft. Founded a year after the end of World War II, it ultimately comprised a group of coordinated, state-run film studios, including, for example, the DEFA Feature and Documentary Film Studios, the Studio for Animation Films, etc. After the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, and German Reunification the following year, it was not clear what would happen to the over 7,500 DEFA films that had been made between 1946 and 1992, as the film rights had belonged to the now-defunct former GDR.
As the post-unification fate of East Germany's film heritage was being decided across the Atlantic, the DEFA Film Library's collection grew bit by bit. In 1997, an agreement with two German partners — Progress Film and the precursor to the DEFA Foundation — brought a collection of East German film journals and the largest collection of 16mm and 35mm prints of DEFA films outside of Germany to the UMass Amherst campus. Also housed in the DEFA Film Library archive are 16mm prints that were donated by the US-GDR Friendship Committee and the former East German Embassy in addition to theatrical films, this part of the collection includes films that were made specifically to report on and represent the GDR overseas. In 1998, ICESTORM International Inc., which owned the international video rights for DEFA films, brought East German titles on video to North America. ICESTORM and the DEFA Film Library collaborated on the selection of 61 titles for the first U.S. release of subtitled DEFA films on video in 1999. On October 1, 2001, the DEFA Film Library took over the distribution of these titles for ICESTORM International. Since 2003, the DEFA Film Library has also been involved in subtitling and producing DEFA films for the North American market, in collaboration with ICESTORM and other licensors.

Circulating Print Archive

The DEFA Film Library's collection of theatrical film prints has now grown to almost 500 prints and have been screened at venues throughout North America, including: The Museum of Modern Art and the New York Jewish Film Festival in New York; the Harvard Film Archive and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the American Film Institute and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Toronto International Film Festival; the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio; Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut; and Darkside Cinema in Corvallis, Oregon.
Most visible have been large-scale touring film series that are co-curated by the DEFA Film Library and various partners and premiere at prestigious cultural institutions. In 2005, The Museum of Modern Art and the Goethe-Institut New York presented the most comprehensive retrospective of East German films ever screened in North America, Rebels with a Cause: The Cinema of East Germany. In 2009, a series commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, WENDE FLICKS: Last Films from East Germany, premiered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, the Wende Museum, UCLA and the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.
The DEFA Film Library has also curated and hosted the annual film festival at the German Studies Association conference since 2004.

DVD releases with English subtitles

The DEFA Film Library's current DVD distribution catalog includes almost 100 German titles, with 6–8 additional titles released every year. Its DVD line strives to complement films with high-quality bonus features and materials for educators. Highlight releases include:
The on-site research collection also includes over 1,000 DVDs and over 400 articles, books and periodicals. In addition, the Special Collections department at UMass Amherst's W.E.B. Du Bois Library owns the collection "Social Change and Movements for Social Change", which includes a Cold War Culture Collection with an emphasis on East Germany.

Programming for scholars

The DEFA Film Library supports an international network of scholars with a range of regular programming that has helped shape national and international research agendas on German cinema.
The DEFA Film Library Filmmaker's Tours bring German filmmakers to colleges, universities and cultural institutions throughout North America. Featured directors have included Frank Beyer, Jürgen Böttcher, Andreas Dresen, Jörg Foth, Iris Gusner, Helke Misselwitz, Siegfried Kühn, Herrmann Zschoche and Rainer Simon.
Other visiting artists and scholars have included:
Film historians and scholars: Monika Albrecht, Seán Allan, Christine Becker, Lothar Bisky, Benita Blessing, Oksana Bulgakova, Burghard Ciesla, Thomas Elsaesser, Thomas Fox, Sabine Hake, Dina Iordanova, Konrad Jarausch, Lars Karl, Heinz Kersten, Mario Kessler, Sylvia Klötzer, Thomas Lindenberger, Claus Löser, Hanno Löwy, Tom Maulucci, Larson Powell, Eric Rentschler, Ralf Schenk, Elke Schieber, Ursula Schröter, Lu Seegers, David Shneer, Frank Stern, Katie Trumpener, Annette Weinke, Johanna Frances Yunker and others.
Facilitated by Victoria Rizo Lenshyn, Benita Blessing and Kyle Frackman
Facilitated by Sky Arndt-Briggs, Sara Lennox, Barton Byg and Victoria Rizo Lenshyn
Facilitated by Sky Arndt-Briggs, Barton Byg and Evan Torner
Facilitated by Sabine Hake and Larson Powell
Facilitated by Barton Byg and Sky Arndt-Briggs
Facilitated by Barton Byg and Katie Trumpener
Facilitated by Barton Byg, Eric Rentschler and Katie
Trumpener
Facilitated by Barton Byg

Curated film series

Awarded! East German Films from Behind the Wall

Eight major award-winning films from the GDR in one series, including all the East German titles ever submitted for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
REEL WOMEN in East Germany
Recommendations for programmers and teachers interested in the lives and work—including as filmmakers—of women in the GDR. Suggested thematic groupings for film series, classes and research on a range of topics.
FILM+ART+JAZZ = Jürgen Böttcher STRAWALDE

Filmmaker and painter, Böttcher/Strawalde has turned eclectic events and materials into painterly films that are known for their striking visual style. Ten films on art, jazz, and Berlin.
Made in East|West Germany
A joint effort pairing West German films and East German films to explore similarities and differences in treatments of a shared past.
WENDE FLICKS: Last Films from East Germany

9 feature and 4 documentary films made by the last generation of GDR filmmakers in the years surrounding the fall of the Wall and German unification. Organized in collaboration with The Wende Museum, L.A.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE: The Cinema of East Germany


The most comprehensive retrospective of East German cinema ever screened in the US, co-curated in collaboration with the MoMA and Goethe-Institut New York. 21 films reflect on the politic of filmmaking in the GDR.
Shadows and Sojourners: Images of Jews and Antifascism in East German Film


The first retrospective representing the intertwined themes of German/Jewish relations, antifascism, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust in GDR cinema.
Berlin, Divided Heaven: From the Ice Age to the Thaw

The city of Berlin has had a history unlike any other that is told by 16 films produced in both parts of Germany.

Faculty Research Fellows