The Other America
The Cinematic Images of the United States in the GDR

"The Other America" was a common formula in the film industry of the GDR, referring to American films or personalities who were considered "progressive" because they showed internationalist commitment or were considered dissidents in the USA. But the formula also reflects an ambivalence found in numerous DEFA films: while America usually stood for the big Other and the powerful enemy, the anti-American discourse often also contained a longing for a different, better America as a stubborn utopia. Anti-Americanism was thus a productive stimulus for political documentarists such as Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann. Anti-Americanism also gave rise to the genre of the "DEFA Indian film" as a counter-image to the Western. In the 1980s, anti-Americanism divided the minds of a generation that was gradually running out of steam.
In nine programs, the retrospective highlights striking moments in the long-distance cinematic relationship between the GDR and the USA. This was characterized by a notorious asymmetry, not only in terms of economic power, but also in terms of mutual interest in and knowledge of each other. For while "East Germany" remained a distant blind spot for most Americans, images of America shaped everyday culture and political rhetoric in the GDR with hardly less impact than elsewhere. Cinema played a central role in this, although American films were received noticeably differently in GDR journalism than in West Germany (from where the German dubbed versions were mostly adopted): They were treated more exemplarily and condemned more polemically, but often also taken more seriously in that they never passed as "mere entertainment". Hollywood was suspicious of the critics, but appeared powerful and was occasionally on the right side. However, US films were always popular in the GDR: from the late 1970s onwards, they were at the top of the public's favorites and the resulting income also made it easier for state authorities to ignore ideological concerns when purchasing films.
The program consists of American films that were shown in the GDR and led to fundamental positioning in film journalism. They are accompanied by DEFA productions and graduation works from the state film academy in Babelsberg, which show the many facets of the examination of "America" in GDR filmmaking. Some associative threads run loosely through the selection. In addition to a romantic but already disappointed longing, some films are linked by the central importance of landscapes as projection surfaces, whereby the landscape actually shown is always a substitute for another. Dramaturgically, the elements of the court case - interrogation, taking of evidence, question of guilt, verdict - also play a formative role in several films. Last but not least, it is exciting to see Spencer Tracy and Richard Widmark twice as striking characters who have to endure historical trials.
The retrospective "The Other America" was curated by Tobias Hering. We would like to thank the Deutsches Filminstitut-Filmmuseum Frankfurt for their kind support.