Biography

19 November 1931

Born in Worms / Rhein

Studies architecture in Berlin

1955 – 1992

Works at the DEFA feature film studios and participates in the production of approx. 60 TV and feature films. Parallel to his work for DEFA, he teaches at the School of Visual and Applied Arts in Berlin-Weißensee and at the Film and Television College in Potsdam-Babelsberg.

Important films: Trotz alledem (1972), Wolz – Leben und Verklärung eines deutschen Anarchisten (1974), Ikarus (1975), Die unverbesserliche Barbara (1977), Achillesferse (1978), Alle meine Mädchen (1980), Die Verlobte (1980), Bürgschaft für ein Jahr (1981), Märkische Forschungen (1982), Hälfte des Lebens (1985), Der Bruch (1989)

1993

Freelance set designer

Set designer Dieter Adam on his work for the film Bürgschaft für ein Jahr

We tried to portray the typical GDR audience in a specific social environment. Our aim was to make people recognise themselves. This was sometimes more of a gag for us; still, it was also reality. It started with “Karla”, the first film I made with [Hermann] Zschoche, and we tried to stick to this topic in all films that followed.

Bürgschaft für ein Jahr is an example for this: How does such a woman live? What is her taste and what are her financial prospects? Once in a while, you might have seen apartments like hers and you might have noticed the surroundings, but you never really talked about it.

I’ve actually always been a “visual collector”, acting more on instinct than reason, although reason was also involved – and this is the way things develop. You also get inspiration from the outside. It was great to walk through the shelves of our prop room, saying: “Look, I have seen something like this in that apartment as well.”

Still, you first have to get an idea of the social circumstances of the respective character and of his or her past. This is what you work out together with the director, which always went really well with Hermann: finding out how someone became the person he or she is now. You always see this in his films.

Excerpt from: I. Poss / P. Warnecke: Spur der Filme. Zeitzeugen über die DEFA. Berlin 2006, p. 373

Selected films with set designs by Dieter Adam

Wolz – Leben und Verklärung eines deutschen Anarchisten

(1974)

Die Verlobte

(1980)

Bürgschaft für ein Jahr

(1981)

Ernst Thälmann

(TV, part 1; 1986)

Der Bruch

(1989)