The GDR at the movies: reality and myth: Andreas Dresen reflects on cinematic portrayal of East Germany in unified Germany.

• Author: Dresen, Andreas
• Position: Viewpoint essay

For the past 20 years I have been surrounded by a mysterious aura that gets brighter and more noticeable whenever I release a new film. It would be futile to ignore it, so I am happy to state: I come from the former east.

In the media, I am often described as an east German filmmaker, although you never hear anyone talk about 'west German filmmakers'--presumably because west German filmmakers are considered to be the norm. I must be a very rare creature indeed.

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Sometimes it seems like only yesterday--even the passage of history ends up submitting to the chronology of our minds. But today's 20-year-olds have no recollection of divided Germany: they only know the GDR through secondhand accounts.

In my case, the fall of the wall coincided almost exactly with the start of my working life. In that respect, I was incredibly lucky, although I would not have said so at the time. Like many of my compatriots I felt lost and overwhelmed. The West German film production industry differed significantly from East Germany's state-controlled film production company DEFA. In the east, filmmakers were guaranteed a job for life, albeit under certain political constraints, whereas after reunification I had to find a place for myself in the 'free' market. Still, as a young, highly qualified film school graduate from the GDR I had an extra something--a touch of East German mystique. With my fellow filmmakers from the east, I set off into uncharted territory, all the while reminding myself that the freedom of the jungle was better than the safety of the zoo. It did not take long to find backers and resources for my debut film, but most of my East German colleagues were less fortunate.

The post-reunification film scene excluded an entire generation of filmmakers--the established DEFA directors. No one was familiar with their work and no one took the trouble to determine which directors were compromised by their association with the regime. In any case, the prospect of dealing with a radically different production system was simply too daunting for some of my older colleagues, who retired from filmmaking altogether. For them, it was extremely disillusioning--they were left with the feeling that their experience counted for nothing. A few of the older filmmakers persevered and tried for years to find backers for their projects--mostly to no avail.

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