by bcblessing | Aug 5, 2014 | Benita Blessing, Education, Films, GDR, History
What would you do if a creepy man in a bar claimed that he had sold your guardian angel – but could get it back to you for a price? If you are Mick, the older of the two boys living on the street, you might be wise to this trickster “Landolfi” and...
by bcblessing | Jul 9, 2014 | Benita Blessing, Films, GDR, History, Uncategorized
In the 1985 delightful East German children’s film Operation Violin Case (Unternehmen Geigenkasten, dir. Gunter Friedrich), young Ole finds himself in a hospital bed with a broken leg after crashing during an attempt to fly using a kite as wings. His father...
by bcblessing | Mar 31, 2014 | Benita Blessing, Education, Films, GDR, History, Uncategorized
In the East German (DEFA) 1962 fairy tale film Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkäppchen, dir. Götz Friedrich), we meet some of Red Riding Hood’s friends – and enemies. Her best pals are the ever-worried Rabbit and the clumsy and rather childish Bear. The Big Bad Wolf...
by bcblessing | Jan 23, 2014 | Benita Blessing, Education, Films, GDR, History, University of Vienna
The phrase “Nazi fairy tale films” seems like either a bad joke, or else yet another area that Nazis turned into propaganda. Yet, Nazi film adaptations of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales represent important examples of children’s films in...
by bcblessing | Oct 27, 2013 | Benita Blessing, Education, Films, GDR, History, Uncategorized
Empty filmic spaces tell us as much about life and politics in East Germany as do the movies that made it to the Big Screen. I have often wondered, for instance, why the socialist film production company DEFA never made a live-action film based on “Hansel and...
by bcblessing | Sep 12, 2013 | Benita Blessing, Education, Films, GDR, History, Uncategorized
What is it about youth on the verge of disaster that makes for such compelling films? The best part of them, of course, comes with the inevitable sacrifice of one of the young protagonists, preferably a suicide or murder that – although useless for the...
