Guest Curator: Marcel Shwierin RT: 66 minutes

Laundresses (Wäscherinnen) by Jürgen Böttcher. GDR, 1972, 35mm, Black & White, 24 minutes.

Installation of a Surveillance Camera (Einrichten einer Beobachtungskamera) by Ministry of State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit). GDR 1975, Black & White, 3 minutes.

Familie Strassburger –Dresden (Family Strassburger –Dresden) by Bill Meyers. GDR/USA 1986, VHS-C, Colour, 20 minutes.

Sanctus, Sanctus by Thomas Werner. GDR, 1988, Super-8, Colour and Black & White, 12 minutes.

America Sells by Bjørn Melhus. FDR, 1990, U-Matic, Colour, 7 minutes.

This programme tells stories of a hidden German Democratic Republic from the time when it still seemed to be strong in the 1970s, until it’s fall at the end of the 1980s. All four GDR films touch on the question of legality, treason and subversion. The last film, made by a West-German filmmaker on the day of the currency reunion, shows the absurdity of the radical change from socialism to capitalism, which was a deception to the people of the East: instead of the freedom they hoped to achieve, they became part of predator capitalism. The title, Watching Them refers to the power of the filmic camera and the question of perspective, which decides who is the traitor to whom.

April 2011