SEEKING - movies/shot set in Berlin and Eastern Europe 1970-1991

Doing some research and I need to look at everything - documentaries, narrative films, tv, everything. Photo books even? I know ILX hivemind can help me out here. I am already aware of Wings Of Desire and Goodbye Lenin! Even things just partially/momentarily set in the above time period and place are welcome.

Thanks!

Would be helpful perhaps to mention that I am looking more at the countries bordering (and close to - like Romania, Hungary and Slovakia) East Germany than the USSR, as I'm sure there is a lot out there on the latter.

the first things that come to mind is the mini-series of Len Deighton's "Game, Set, Match" books

Duly noted! I have never seen that. I suppose a lot of the material out there will be Cold War/spy stuff (which is useful) but anything about the lives of ordinary people wld be great

Berlin Alexanderplatz, maybe?

Yes! I didn't even think about that.

i like this thread idea

'the all-around reduced personality' (helke sander, 1978)

OOh, I've never even heard of that

Yep, that def. looks intriguing

yvonne rainer has a cameo in it iirc

Carlos has a lot of scenes in Budapest and Germany

tinker tailor hungary scene

would 'videograms of a revolution' (harun farocki, 1992) count?

Yes, definitely. I was thinking about that one.

In fact that is particularly useful for me. Fall of the iron curtain things would be great. 12:08 East Of Bucharest is on my list even though it is kind of a retrospective view of that, it still has good insights

possession dir. zulawski is all shot in berlin iirc

aha! =)

it deals with post-iron curtain collapse and comes a bit later but: 'the fall of communism as seen in gay pornography' (william e. jones, 1998)

Haha, yes that is a good one!

have you peeped the goethe-institut film catalog? no descriptions but a huge list of titles:

http://www.goethe.de/mmo/priv/3178121-STANDARD.pdf

No, you are v helpful, thank you. I appreciate it.

:)

on that note, i should probably do work

12:08 east of bucharest worth a look for sure. find 'the paper will be blue' if you can. i just watched 'tales from the golden age' and 'the way i spent the end of the world' both set in ceausescu's romania. they are both on netflix streaming, but neither was particularly good.

i assume you don't mean west berlin then

I do! Actually I am partic. interested in West Berlin

in that case have you ever seen taxi zum klo, all these shots of berlin at night. the taking the u-bahn home from a wild party when everyone else is going to work. its also really hot but in a way that might elude its intended niche audience.

The Narodowy Instytut Audiowizualny have tonnes of documentaries on Poland from this period, if you're interested.

Time of the Gypsies - 1987, Yugoslavia

kieslowski's decalogue.

i think herzog's stroszek starts in berlin in the late 70s before moving to the us of a. but i haven't seen it in years and don't remember how much time it spends in germany.

Can't go wrong with any of Pavel Jurácek's films (he's Czech) but most of his work was done in the 1960s. I think Jan Schmidt worked longer. Late August at the Hotel Ozone is terrific, but it's from 1967 so it's outside your date range.

This documentary on communist musicals is a must watch:

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/5149/eastsidestory2.jpg

Fall-of-the-iron-curtain stuff from Hungary should be pretty easy to find. Dear Emma, Sweet Bobe by Istvan Szabo might be worth a look.

If you're in the UK i could probably lend you some of the Polish documentaries i mentioned upthread. There's lots of stuff from the Lodz school that might be useful.

It comes a bit later (1993, iirc) but Ladoni might be interesting if you want to know how unutterably grim life was in Moldova in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the USSR. It's the most depressing film i've ever seen, and pretty exploitative at times, but certainly has an impact.

I'm not sure if those fit your criteria, but perhaps you check out classic Polish comedies directed by Stanisław Bareja http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0054402/ - they're mostly set in Warsaw and are focused on showing all the absurdities of life in '70/'80 Poland. searching for "Miś" or "Nie ma róży bez ognia" should give you a lot of clips on YT

i think herzog's stroszek starts in berlin in the late 70s before moving to the us of a.

Yes. Bruno S's Berlin accent was apparently impenetrably thick.

More West Berlin:

"Christiane F"
"Taxi zum Klo"

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism is partly set in eraly 70s Yugoslavia iirc.

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days is 80's Romania.

the films of Jorg Buttgereit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Buttgereit

The two Einsturzende Neubauten documentaries 'Liebslieder' and 'Listen With Pain' might be of interest.