Collection context
Summary
Background
- Scope and content:
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Ca. 1700 film programs with the titles Progress Film Illustrierte (1953-1957) and Progress Film Programm (1957-1978, from #63/66 with additional title "Film für Sie"), both published by VEB Progress Film Vertrieb, Berlin, mostly 2 pages. The collection includes loose leaf index (ca. 28 pages) of films from 1969-1974, ca. 50 programs for children's films (1967-1970) as well as ca. 30 magazine-style catalogs for GDR and USSR feature film and made-for-TV film festivals. There are also approx. 85 volumes of the magazine Treffpunkt Kino (1970-1977), published by Progress Film Verleih Berlin.
Programs include such information as cast; director; film's country of origin; voiceover credits; photos; and plot summary, largely from an anticapitalist or antifascist perspective. Films represented are western as well as east bloc productions; some Asian films included. Genres range from romances, melodramas, light comedies, musicals, opera, and literary adaptations to westerns, adventure, spy stories, cold war themes, class relations and diatribes against capitalism. Children's films range from feature films to cartoons and hand puppet films and are largely Czech or East German in origin.
Western productions include American films such as Manche mögen's heiß (39/68), and Weißer Terror (125/65) about race relations and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as Urteil von Nürnberg (134/63). There are programs for English, Scottish, French, Italian, Austrian, as well as East German, Russian-Soviet, Georgian-Soviet, Yugoslavian, Czech, Hungarian, Rumanian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean films. Some collaborations are also included, such as French-Swedish and German [DEFA]-Swedish. Representative films from the east bloc are those extolling communism and socialism, including the Soviet production Das russische Wunder (31/63), as well as literary adaptations of Russian classics, including Krieg und Frieden (11/67 and 25/67). There are also many examples of films that expose the evils of western society, such as the Italian film Garantiert Jungfrau (101/69).
The magazine Treffpunkt Kino includes such features as descriptive reviews of films; film credits; Tatsachen und Tendenzen - DEFA in Potsdam-Babelsberg; Neue Kinderfilme; DEFA-Report; Auslandbericht.
- Custodial history:
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Purchased, 1995.
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Motion pictures--East Germany.
- Names:
- DEFA
About this collection guide
- Date Prepared:
- © 1998
- Date Encoded:
- Machine-readable finding aid derived from MS Word. Date of source: 1995.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
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None.
- Terms of access:
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Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections.
- Preferred citation:
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[Identification of item] Film programs from East Germany, M0771, Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
- Location of this collection:
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Department of Special Collections, Green Library557 Escondido MallStanford, CA 94305-6004, US
- Contact:
- (650) 725-1022