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1. Short film responses to be handed in every Monday.
2. Opening class discussion of film with one or more other students - at
least once. You are asked to prepare background information on the
film/the filmmaker, talk about important issues the film raises, and
prepare questions for the discussion.
3. Final paper (10 - 15 pages)
Topics for Discussion and/or Student Papers:
 | questions of national identity and the cultural heritage
| DEFA--national cinema in its own right?
| New (West) German Cinema and DEFA
| the depiction of the Jews and the Holocaust in East German Cinema
| depictions of Nazism and Anti-Fascism
| the relationship of artist/intellectuals to power
| the "Bitterfelder Weg" and Socialist Realism
| writers and DEFA (Jurek Becker, Christa Wolf, Ernst Loest, Helga
Schutz, Ulrich Plenzdorf, etc.)
| aesthetic influences in DEFA films (UFA films of the 30s and 40s,
Soviet Socialist Realism, Italian neo-realism, Avant-garde, new wave, and
documentary traditions)
| the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the situation since
German unification
| women in GDR society and the representation of women in DEFA films
| sexuality in GDR film (women, gay sexuality, family politics in the GDR)
| the banned films of 1965
| popular culture in the GDR
| DEFA documentary films
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