The Dryden will screen a double-feature of Alles Andere zeigt die Zeit—leipzig und Anderswo, 1989—2015 (Time Will Tell—leipzig and Elsewhere, 1989—2015, Andreas Voigt, Germany 2015, 89 min., DCP, German w/subtitles), and Als wir die Zukunft waren—Sieben Geschichten aus einem verschwundenen Land (When We Were the Future—Seven Stories from a Vanished Country, Peter Kahane, Thomas Knauf, Andreas Voigt, Hannes Schönemann, Gabriele Denecke, Ralf Marschalleck, Lars Barthel, Germany 2015, 87 min., DCP, German w/subtitles) with director Andreas Voigt, and producer Barbara Etz present to discuss the films.

Documentary filmmaker Andreas Voigt chronicled life in Leipzig for more than 25 years, beginning in 1989, when his protagonists were young teenagers, through the fall of the Berlin wall and German unification. Voigt has kept in close touch with the punk girl turned successful businesswoman, Isabel; the skinhead Sven, who has struggled with long-term unemployment; and Jenny, who traces her family's tragic history in the archives of the East German secret police. In Voigt's fifth film about Leipzig, we encounter people adjusting in different ways to leaving their childhoods in a vanished socialist Gdr and life in capitalist, unified Germany. The film won the prestigious Bavarian Film Prize in 2016 and opened the 2015 Leipzig Documentary Film Festival to overflowing audiences and critical acclaim.

In this autobiographical compilation film, seven directors from the East German film studio DEFA remember their childhood in the 1950s and 1960s GDR. In funny, poignant, and deeply moving stories, each director finds a unique form of storytelling. Using animation, archival material, stylized reenactments, and family photo collections, the filmmakers tell hauntingly intimate stories that at the same time reveal much about growing up in postwar Germany, life in the young, idealist, socialist state, and the perils of memory. Director Andreas Voigt and recent visiting filmmaker Peter Kahane (The Architects) are contributors to this film, which was featured at the 2015 Leipzig Documentary Festival and nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize.

[source: George Eastman Museum, 2018-Apr-16]