Contemporary witnesses and experts are guests, including the former escape helper Burkhart Veigel. In the 1960s, he helped more than 650 people to escape – spectacular was the escape with a Cadillac in which the fugitive was hidden behind the dashboard (!) – as well as the photographer Harald Hauswald, who was observed by over 40 Stasi spies from 1977 to 1989. The film festival takes place in the large hall of the Colosseum Film Theatre. All interested parties can come and go as they please. Hop-on hop-off cinema, the way you like it. Admission is free and possible at any time, as long as one of the 550 seats is free.
The festival continues on the 10 November with the Children’s Film Festival Fall of the Wall#35 in the Colosseum. It’s the film event for children up to 10 years of age. We show films about childhoods in the two Germanys, about the differences in sweets, fairy tale characters and cars, about coffee smugglers and customs officers with runny noses, as well as about Easterhazy, who heard that the Berlin bunnies are supposed to live in a kind of paradise by some wall. So it’s off to Berlin! After the film program, there will be a workshop with the MACHmit! Museum for Children.
Also on the 10 November is the Youth Film Festival. It deals with questions about divided Berlin: How did the Wall system work, why did West German young people have to travel via a motorway called the “transit route” if they wanted to party in Kreuzberg in the eighties? But there was also a lot going on in the eastern part of the city, for example, mopeds were driven and ears pierced at Helmholtzplatz, and once a week there was disco dancing in Willis. And during the holidays we went to the Baltic Sea, but somehow everything was very different back then than it is today.
The final screening is Deutschlandbilder by Wolfgang Ettlich, 87 Min., 1990/2015/2020 The film is a road movie through East Germany and at the same time a journey through time, because the documentary filmmaker Wolfgang Ettlich undertook the same journey for the first time after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990 and then several times at long intervals and met the same people again. The original footage of the first voyage provides unspectacular insights into people’s everyday lives, and in contrast to the new footage, the major changes become visible. Have people’s hopes been fulfilled, were their fears justified? The conversations with the rediscovered protagonists provide information about their state of mind today.
The film festival is a cooperation between Geschichtsbüro Müller, the MACHmit! museum for children and the Colosseum film theatre. It is kindly supported by the Berlin Commissioner for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship, the Berlin Wall Foundation and the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship.
Further information can be found on the Berlin Wall Film Festival website.
Shortfilmfest Mauerfall#35 at Colosseum
Over six hours of short films on the topics of building the Wall, fear & mistrust, everyday life with the Wall and the fall of the Wall & transformation. Contemporary witnesses and experts will be guests. Admission is free and possible at any time as long as one of the 550 seats is free.
Children’s Film Festival Fall of the Wall#35 at the Colosseum
The Children’s Film Festival Fall of the Wall#35 in the Colosseum is the film event for children up to 10 years of age. After the film program, there will be a workshop with the MACHmit! Museum for Children.
Fall of the Berlin Wall Film Festival#35 of the Youth in the Colosseum
The Youth Film Festival deals with questions about divided Berlin: How did the Wall system work, why did West German young people have to travel via a motorway called the “transit route” if they wanted to party in Kreuzberg in the eighties?
Final Mauerfilmfest#35
Film screening: Deutschlandbilder, Regie Wolfgang Ettlich, 87 Min., 1990/2015/2020.The conversations with the rediscovered protagonists provide information about their state of mind today.
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