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Established in 1955, the Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival became a central arena for staging the cultural politics of the German Democratic Republic, both domestically and in relation to West Germany and the rest of the world. Screened Encounters represents the definitive history of this key event, recounting the political and artistic exchanges it enabled from its founding until German unification, and tracing the outsize influence it exerted on international cultural relations during the Cold War.
“[The author] consistently deploys a variety of distinct, yet complementary, source materials (archival resources and oral interviews, as well as the documentary films themselves) to make an argument for the festival’s significance to Cold War, East German, and documentary film history. This lucid, deeply contextualized account of the Leipzig Festival’s history will be valuable to scholars interested in Cold War history, film studies, and German studies. - Highly recommended” • Choice
“A highly readable, supremely well-researched and fascinating account of the Leipzig Film Festival… a knowledgeable and engaging analysis of an event that comprised a multitude of voices – those of reformers, apparatchiks, iconoclasts and conformists – and where key international developments and crises were echoed in films screened (or not) and discussions staged (or silenced)…More than that, the book offers a valuable guide to East German history, situating as it does the film festival in the context of the GDR’s foreign, domestic and cultural policy all of which had implications for filmmakers and curators.” • Studies in Eastern European Cinema
List of Illustrations and Figures
Preface: The Cold War's Documentary Crossroads: Leipzig in the Galaxy of Festivals
Dina Iordanova
Introduction: A Festival at the Heart of the Cold War
PART I: A COLD WAR FESTIVAL (1949-1964)
Chapter 1. The Genesis of the Leipzig Film Festival
Chapter 2. Opening to the World
Chapter 3. Between Propaganda and Cinéma Vérité
PART II: BETWEEN PROVINCIALISM AND INTERNATIONAL DIALOGUE (1964-1973)
Chapter 4. When the Tide Turns…
Chapter 5. Toward Documentaries with a Human Face
Chapter 6. Documentaries in the Service of International Solidarity
PART III: A TROMPE L'OEIL MISE-EN-SCÈNE? (1973-1983)
Chapter 7. Wide Angle on Socialist Society
Chapter 8. Don’t Wait for Better Times
PART IV: TOWARD NEW HORIZONS (1984-1990)
Chapter 9. An Opening to the East?
Chapter 10. Revolution on the Screen, on the Street
Conclusion: Beyond the Cold War: A Memory in the Making
Appendices
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Film Index