29 November 2007 – 20 January 2008
Making a film is a collaborative effort, and as DEFA director Günter Reisch treasured those who contributed to this effort, the people on the pictures shown in this foyer exhibition were his colleagues: directors, cameramen, editors, actors, composers, costume and set designers, and technicians. Besides, they showed Reisch’s teachers (such as DEFA co-founder Prof. Kurt Maetzig) and his students (among them Andreas Dresen), all of whom he is supporting until the present day.
Already on his first day working for DEFA – 1 March 1948 –, Günter Reisch started documenting how he and his colleagues made films. He photographed, filmed, took notes, and collected memorabilia. He captured the making of all of his 18 feature films with his private camera – including his 1956 debut film “Junges Gemüse”, the two films on Karl Liebknecht that he directed, and his last film “Wie die Alten sungen...” (1987). Reisch also documented the encounters with international filmmakers as these events were highly important to him. During the 60 years Reisch worked in the film business, he compiled an impressive collection that offers a very individual perspective on German film history. Shortly before his 80th birthday, Günter Reisch decided to entrust this archive to Filmmuseum Potsdam.
DEFA Foundation provided financial support to make the systematic cataloguing of the collection possible.