Werner Bergmann
18 January 2001 - 31 March 2001

Werner Bergmann (1921 - 1990) belonged to the best-known cameramen of the DEFA feature film studios for which he worked from 1953 to 1984 and where he shot more than 50 feature and TV films. "Alarm im Zirkus", made in 1954 and directed by Gerhard Klein, already evinces Bergmann′s search for a realistic visual style.
Most notably, it was during his cooperation with director Konrad Wolf that his most important works emerged, such as "Sterne“(1959), "Lissy“ (1957), "Sonnensucher“ (1958/1972), "Ich war neunzehn“ (1968), "Goya“ (1971) and “Der nackte Mann auf dem Sportplatz“ (1974). During the 1980s, he shot and directed "Nachtspiele" (1979) and "Die dicke Tilla" (1982).
The exhibition documented the making of the films and, moreover, showed Bergmann′s participation in the development and the implementation of DEFA′s 70 mm wide-screen technology.
For the first time, several photos were displayed in the exhibition that Werner Bergmann took as a Wehrmacht cameraman at the front, among them photos of Leni Riefenstahl visiting the troops in Warsaw, but also some pictures that document his life and works after 1945. In combination with diary notes that were also presented to the public for the first time, the exhibits gave evidence of an artistic life that focused on the search for awareness and the truthful depiction of life.