This mini-series looks back at the history of East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall through the related motifs of construction and destruction, rise and ruin. Two feature films and two documentaries offer insights into the architecture of socialism and its aftermath. Addressing the role of architecture both literally and figuratively, the filmmakers investigate what it meant to build socialism in the 1960s, how socialism decayed through the late 1980s, what it meant to bring down a wall between two states in 1989, and how to rebuild after unification in the 1990s. In other words, the four films highlight four historical moments. All films are in German with English subtitles and free and open to the public.
1. Oct 22: Aufbau / Construction, Frank Beyer’s Traces of Stone
2. Oct 29: Baustop / Stagnation, Peter Kahane’s The Architects
3. Nov 5: Abbau / Demolition, Jürgen Böttcher’s The Wall
4. Nov 12: Umbau / Reconstruction, Hubertus Siegert’s Berlin Babylon

View PDF flier

Sponsored by Dept of Germanic Languages & Literatures, Freedom without Walls, Rackham Interdisciplinary Avant Garde Interest Group, Defa Film Library