Often referred to as East German cinema’s greatest auteur, Konrad Wolf’s life matched the exhilarating uniqueness of his films. In 1945, he returned to Nazi Germany from the USSR, where his family had been exiled to, as a teenage Red Army lieutenant, an event he later turned into the classic Ich war neunzehn. Wolf studied film at the Moscow State Institute of Cinematography and had a successful career at DEFA directing fourteen films. A true believer in the potentials of cinema in building a socialist society, his films told stories of the past and present through a revisionist eye. Yet, he didn’t shy away from sensitive subjects that crossed party lines, by doing so subjecting himself to state censorship.
Curated by Ralf Schenk

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