IN DIALOGUE – with films
Film series accompanying the exhibition "IN DIALOGUE"
Filmmuseum Potsdam © Filmmuseum Potsdam, Photo: Jörg Leopold
To accompany the exhibition IN DIALOGUE – Hasso Plattner Collection: Art from the GDR at MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam, the Filmmuseum Potsdam looks back at the 1970s and 1980s in the GDR with three feature films and a new documentary film. It kicks off with a recording of Wolf Biermann’s momentous Cologne concert on November 13, 1976. After the loosening of cultural policy at the beginning of the 1970s, which was brought about by the change of power from Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker, the expatriation of the songwriter Wolf Biermann marked a new era of social and cultural-political restrictions.
Upon presentation of a MINSK admission ticket, the Filmmuseum Potsdam grants reduced admission to the above films. On presentation of a ticket for the film screenings, DAS MINSK grants reduced admission to the exhibition IN DIALOGUE.
In cooperation with the Filmmuseum Potsdam
Program details: www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de
February 2, 2025, 5 PM
Wolf Biermann: Das Kölner Konzert 13. November 1976 [The Cologne Concert November 13, 1976]
FRG (TV) 1976, concert recording, 215’
From 1965, Wolf Biermann was not only banned from performing and publishing in the GDR, but also from traveling. In 1976, the singer-songwriter and poet was unexpectedly granted permission to leave the country for a tour of West Germany. On November 13th he gave his first concert in over 11 years for approximately 8,000 people in Cologne. At the time, nobody realized that the departure had only been approved in order to expatriate Biermann. Three days later, the news came that “Biermann’s right of residence in the GDR has been revoked”—due to “gross violations of civic duties.” The Politburo had anticipated protests in the West, but not in their own country. Thousands of people there sided with Biermann, many of whom paid for this with years of imprisonment. Numerous writers, artists, and actors left the GDR, which marked the beginning of the end of actually existing socialism.
Wolf Biermann: Das Kölner Konzert 13. November 1976, Foto: Barbara Klemm
Nelken in Aspik, still, source: DEFA-Stiftung, Rudolf Meister
February 28, 2025, 7:30 PM
Nelken in Aspik [Carnations In Aspic]
D: Günter Reisch, D: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Helga Sasse, Erik S. Klein, GDR 1976, 94’
Armin Mueller-Stahl is joined by Eva-Maria Hagen and Winfried Glatzeder in this over-the-top, turbulent comedy about the untalented commercial artist Wolfgang Schmidt, who is unintentionally promoted. In the wake of the expatriation of singer-songwriter and poet Wolf Biermann in the same year, they left the GDR one after the other. As a result, Nelken in Aspik was no longer shown in cinemas.
April 30, 2025, 7:30 PM
Geschlossene Gesellschaft [Closed Society]
D: Frank Beyer, D: Jutta Hoffmann, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Sigfrit Steiner, GDR (TV) 1978, 118’
Ellen and Robert could be a model couple. But their marriage is in crisis. “It’s strange here. The silence seems like noise to me,” Ellen observes when she finally spends her vacation with Robert and son Nick at their vacation home. The coded film about hopes and desires, doubt and resignation portrays a paralyzed society and triggered a fiercely debated censorship scandal in GDR television: after its first broadcast on November 29, 1978, the intimate drama disappeared into the proverbial cupboard.
Note: The date has been postponed from April 25 to April 30, 2025.
Geschlossene Gesellschaft, still, source: Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv
Jadup und Boel, still, source: DEFA Stiftung, Foto: Ebert
June 27, 2025, 7:30 PM
Jadup und Boel [Jadup and Boel]
D: Rainer Simon, D: Kurt Böwe, Katrin Knappe, Gudrun Ritter, GDR 1980/88, 104’
Jadup is the respected mayor of a provincial town in the Altmark. During the roofing ceremony for the new HO department store, a farmstead collapses. An old Marxist pamphlet that Jadup had given to a girl named Boel turns up in the rubble. Jadup’s past catches up with him when he finds it. He rethinks his previous life and questions the obvious contradiction between the state’s self-image and the reality of actual socialism.
Rainer Simon’s adaptation of the novel Jadup by Paul Kanut Schäfer was only released after a three-year phase of discussion. The film played only in selected GDR cinemas.
August 8, 2025, 7:30 PM
Die Behauptung des Raumes – Wege unabhängiger Ausstellungskultur in der DDR [Claiming Space – Paths of Independent Exhibition Culture in the GDR]
D: Claus Löser, D 2009, Doc., English subtitles, 100’
From the 1970s onwards, an independent art and exhibition scene developed in the GDR that was detached from the official apparatus. Alongside the now world-famous Leipzig gallery EIGEN+ART, venues like the 1st Leipzig Autumn Salon (1984), the Clara Mosch group’s gallery Mosch in Karl-Marx-Stadt (1977–1982) and, above all, Jürgen Schweinebraden’s first private gallery EP in East Berlin (1974-1980) created refuges of artistic autonomy. “The film tells stories about this free GDR-culture. Previously undiscovered video recordings and impressive filmic documents of this scene connect with a contemporary, documentary layer in which the involved artists and other personalities have a chance to speak.” (absolut medien)