Zwischen Ende & Auf-/Bruch. Alltägliches in der Zeit vor und nach 1989

In the organizer's words:

SPECIAL from 2 to 4 September 2025: Organized in cooperation: Frauenkultur e.V., Kinobar Prager Frühling, Louise-Otto-Peters-Gesellschaft & Stiftung Friedliche Revolution

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the unification of the two German states, open communicative spaces enable deep(er) retrospectives of understanding. In this context, perspectives on the lives of women in the GDR and on the everyday social fabric of society in the period of upheaval after 1989 are of particular importance. The films of director HELKE MISSELWITZ - "Winter adé." | documentary DDR 1988 and "Herzsprung." | feature film 1992" - reflect the everyday lives of women shortly before and shortly after 1989.

HELKE MISSELWITZ, born in Zwickau in 1947, is one of DEFA's most important directors. She came to film in a roundabout way; after training as a cabinetmaker and physiotherapist, she worked freelance for GDR television and studied directing at the Potsdam-Babelsberg Academy of Film and Television. After graduating in 1982, she worked as a freelance director and earned her living as a cleaner in a station restaurant and as a supervisor in a gallery. All this gave her a precise view of people's lives.

Tue., 02. 09. 2025 | 17.00 hrs

Winter adé

Director: HELKE MISSELWITZ, 116 min., documentary DDR 1988

Location: Prager Frühling cinema bar in the House of Democracy, Bernhard-Göring-Straße 152, 04277 Leipzig

Helke Misselwitz was born in an ambulance at the railroad crossing in Planitz near Zwickau with the help of her grandmother. It is precisely from this place that Helke Misselwitz starts her film journey through the GDR to find out how others live, have lived... how they would like to live in the future. On her journey, she gets to know various female personalities: successful advertising economist Hiltrud, single mother Christine, who works in a briquette factory, punk girls Kerstin and Anja, 85-year-old Margarete, who is celebrating her diamond wedding anniversary with her husband, and the deputy mayor of Niehagen, Erika, who runs a children's home full-time. They all talk about their lives, about marriage and family, work, strokes of fate and prospects for the future.

The cinematic result: 1988, a country in transition. The film was awarded the Silver Dove at the 31st International Leipzig DOK Film Week in 1988. The film met with resistance from GDR television and was not broadcast until the end of November 1989.

Admission: 8,50 | 7,- Euro reduced for severely disabled, in education (school/study) and Leipzig-Pass holders

Wed., 03. 09. 2025 | 17.00 hrs

HELKE MISSELWITZ & Grit Lemke in conversation

"It was important for me to be able to say 'I' in the structure I come from. I wanted to have a say in what I shoot in the future." (H.M

HELKE MISSELWITZ is one of the most important directors of the GDR and continued to make critical films after 1989. In conversation with GRIT LEMKE, author & director of the following generation, they talk about their "becoming this way", the challenges in the male-dominated film business, their hopes and what they consider necessary at this time.

Why was the film "Winter adé" made? The director said in 2019: "The image [of women] in the newspapers or on television was completely different from what I perceived... I didn't see a reflection of the experiences I had."

Until the 1980s, there were only men in important positions in the film industry in the GDR.

Helke Misselwitz was one of the few directors to continue her film work in reunified Germany. From 1997 to 2014, she taught as a professor of directing at the Konrad Wolf Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Her films have screened at international festivals and have won numerous awards. In 2016, she received the German Film Critics' Honorary Award. She has been a member of the Akademie der Künste since 1991 and Deputy Director of the Film and Media Art section since 2018.

The discussion will be conducted by GRIT LEMKE, born 1965 in Spremberg; grew up in Hoyerswerda; studied cultural studies, ethnology and literature in Leipzig, 1999 doctorate at the Humboldt University in Berlin. She has been working for film festivals since 1991, for many years for DOK Leipzig, where she was head of the film program until 2017. Head of the German-Sorbian section "Heimat | Domownja | Domizna" at the Cottbus Film Festival until 2022. Her works include 2019 "Gundermanns Revier" cinema documentary, director (Grimme Award nomination);

2021 "Children of Hoy. Freiheit, Glück und Terror" documentary novel (Hans Fallada Prize 2024); 2023 "Bei uns heißt sie Hanka/Pla nas gronje jej Hanka/Pola nas rěka wona Hanka" (cinema documentary, director) || Admission by self-assessment

Thu, 04. 09. 2025 | 17.00 hrs

FILM & TALK

Herzsprung. An in-depth look at life two years after reunification

Director: HELKE MISSELWITZ, D 1992, 87 min.; FSK 12

Introduction: NANE PLEGER, Chairman of the Louise-Otto-Peters-Society

Venue: Cinema bar Prager Frühling in the House of Democracy, Bernhard-Göring-Straße 152, 04277 Leipzig

In 1992, HELKE MISSELWITZ produced her first feature film, "Herzsprung", in which she takes up the conflicts of radical upheaval - characterized by radical economic and ideological changes.

In the village of Herzsprung, Johanna meets a nameless Afro-German traveler. Confronted with racism on a daily basis, an unhappy love story begins. The film shows a society in a state of shock. Misselwitz dispenses with clichéd images - and portrays the characters in a variety of ways: authentic and resilient, tough and tender... but above all as active subjects. The film premiere took place two months after the pogrom on the Sonnenblumenhaus in Rostock-Lichtenhagen - on a hostel and its residents... Vietnamese former contract workers

Performers include Eva-Maria Hagen, Claudia Geisler, Gabriele Gysi, Nino Sandow, Ben Becker; music: by POEMS FOR LAILA and others

Admission: 8,50 | 7,- Euro reduced for severely disabled, in education (school/study) and Leipzig-Pass holders

Price information:

Admission: 8,50 | 7,- Euro reduced for severely disabled, in education (school/study) and Leipzig Pass holders