University of Massachusetts Amherst

02/07/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 02/07/2024 13:17

DEFA Film Library Announces Releases for 2024

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The DEFA Film Library has announced its film release program, "Screen and Stream 2024," which includes a variety of feature films, full-length documentaries and playlists of shorts. The selected films highlight screenings from the 2023 Summer Film Institute, "HIDDEN FIGURES: Blackness and Black Experiences in East Germany," and films that were created by Chilean artists while in East German exile after the 1973 military coup.

Highlights of the 2024 releases include the 2022 award-winning film, "The Homes We Carry" (Germany, dir. Brenda Akele Jorde) about Mozambican contract workers in East Germany, and the "Sweep It Up" trilogy by Gerd Kroske - guest of the 2023 Unveiling of the Berlin Wall Piece event on the UMass Amherst campus - whose long-term documentary project followed street cleaners in Leipzig for almost 20 years.

The 2024 release schedule also includes the 4K restoration of "Paul Robeson: 'I'm a Negro. I'm an American.'" (dir. Kurt Tetzlaff), with new English subtitles created by the DEFA Film Library, and "Angel Wagenstein: Art Is a Weapon," NYC-based filmmaker Andrea Simon's provocative portrait of Bulgarian Jewish scriptwriter and novelist Angel Wagenstein, who was also the screenwriter of several East German film classics.

New productions to DEFA's collection of environmentally themed films will also be added, including "Farewell Disco," (1989, dir. Rolf Losansky), the "Reel Women" catalog that features women artists and films about women's experiences, "The Seventh Year" (1968, dir. Frank Vogel), and films about the Berlin Wall, including Kroske's 2014 film "Drawing a Line."

The DEFA Film Library will make the films available for educational streaming via Goethe on Demand, Kanopy and the DEFA Vimeo channel, and for rental and DSL rights. UMass Amherst students, faculty and staff can also access these new releases through its special events library.

More information about DEFA and the "Screen and Stream 2024" slate of films can be found on the DEFA Film Library website.