We are proud to present our latest book, Was wir filmten − Filme von ostdeutschen Regisseurinnen nach 1990 (What We Filmed – Films by East German Women Directors after 1990). Three generations of East German women directors talk about films, including their own works, made in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Early feature films such as Helke Misselwitz’s Herzsprung, rarely shown documentary films such as Berlin, Bahnhof Friedrichstraße 1990 (directed by: Konstanze Binder, Lilly Grote, Ulrike Herdin, Julia Kunert) and Bruderland ist abgebrannt (directed by Angelika Nguyen), plus new works by Therese Koppe and Ines Johnson-Spain provide a platform for debates about different ways to remember.

This anthology was preceded by the focus topic After Reunification 1990 | 2020, curated by Betty Schiel at Internationales Frauen* Film Fest Dortmund+Köln in September 2020. In several film programmes and at a joint roundtable discussion, film-makers and curators debated which films from the post-reunification period were important and why. Making their presence keenly felt here was a third-generation camp, confidently pushing the case for a polymorphous narrative from an East German perspective. This is the expression of a debate that has been emerging for many years and is now at last impossible to ignore. We contribute to this debate with our book on texts and films by women, filling the gap in film historiography left by a lack of coherent consideration or appreciation of the positions and works of East German women directors following German reunification.

Guests: Madeleine Bernstorff, Lilly Grote, Johanna-Yasirra Kluhs, Ines Johnson-Spain, Cucuteni.