„Behind the Wall. ‚Perfectly Normal Lives‘ in the GDR?“

25 years after the Peaceful Revolution and the Fall of the Berlin Wall there are still discussions about the GDR, about the life there, about the feelings the people had of this state. Often there is a difference between those who say the GDR was an illegitimate state and those who think, not everything was badly in the GDR. It isn’t always easy to understand how can arise two so different opinions about same different state.

The movie I want to represent today in our blog deals with exact this topic. Mary Fulbrook searched for her film for contemporary witnesses who can tell something about their life in the GDR, about the good things and the bad things, about those things they miss now in Germany and about those which they could deny really well.

Between the dialogues with the witnesses there are historical facts about the background of the GDR. Furthermore there are some political and economic information about the GDR itself. So you can put the comments of the witnesses in context with the history of the state. That is a really important fact regarding dialogues with contemporary witnesses.

The dialogues are in German with English subtitles. So they are really authentically. The movie lasts 60 minutes and you can get additional information about the film project. It was shot in 2006 in Berlin and Brandenburg, sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK and produced in association with the University College London.