Film Screening and Conversation
Tuesday, 26 November, 7pm, Goethe-Institut London
ANDREAS GOLDSTEIN: THE COMMUNIST (DER FUNKTIONÄR)
In 2018 the until then unknown director Andreas Goldstein released two films, his feature film debut 'Adam & Evelyn' based on the novel by Ingo Schulze, and the essay film "Der Funktionär" (The Communist), a portrait of his father, Klaus Gysi, onetime cultural minister of the GDR and long term East German party functionary. Both films have attracted much attention in Germany and have been widely reviewed. Andreas Goldstein will be at the Goethe-Institut on 26 and 27 November to talk about his films. The screening of Adam & Evelyn on 27 Nov is already sold out but there are still tickets available for the screening of "The Communist", which is followed by a conversation between Andreas Goldstein and the historian and author Udo Grashoff, University College London.
More Information: https://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ver.cfm?fuseaction=events.detail&event_id=21674606
About "The Communist"
In this essayistic film, director Andreas Goldstein draws a complex portrait of his father Klaus Gysi (1912-1999), who was a high ranking functionary in the East German political system. A member of the German Communist Party (KPD) from 1931, he was active in oppositional activities against the Nazis from 1940 to1945 in Berlin, where he became a local mayor after the war and joined the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany). An eloquent, cultured intellectual with a bourgeois family background, he did not embody the typical party functionary, but in the following decades he rose up in the political hierarchy to hold a range of important positions, including that of director of the state-owned Aufbau Publishing House (1957-1966), of Cultural Minister (1966-1973), ambassador to Italy and Malta (1973-1978), and State Secretary of Church Affairs (1979-1988). Taking a decidedly subjective approach and employing a multi-layered montage of TV interviews with his father, family photos and newly filmed footage, Goldstein explores how political ideals, opportunism and self-deception played together in shaping of his father’s life. In doing so, he also explores how the GDR functioned and why it failed.
The Communist (Der Funktionär), Germany 2018, b/w & colour, DCP, 72 mins. With English subtitles. Directed by Andreas Goldstein. Script: Andreas Goldstein, Camera: Jakobine Motz, Editor: Chris Wright, Producers: Andreas Goldstein, Heino Deckert.
Andreas Goldstein is a director and producer based in Berlin. After studying directing at the Film and Television Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg "Konrad Wolf" (now: Film University Babelsberg) and being a master student at the Berlin Academy of Arts, he made several short films and worked as a production manager and producer. In 2008 he founded the production company Oktoberfilm together with director and producer Susanne Binninger. In addition, he has been writing film-theoretical and film-critical texts. His debut as feature film director Adam and Evelyn premiered at the International Film Festival in Venice in 2018, the same year his film The Communist (Der Funktionär) had its premiere at DOK Leipzig.
Udo Grashoff is DAAD Francis L. Carsten Lecturer at the History Department of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London, where he teaches modern German and Central European History. His work mostly covers 20th-century Germany with a focus on the history of the two German dictatorships and a special interest in taboo subjects. He examines resistance, opposition, political violence and individual agency in borderline situations. He has carried out pioneering research on suicide in the GDR, informal housing (Schwarzwohnen), and 'betrayal' within the Communist Party of Germany. He has also published two collections of his own poetry. He lives in London and in Leipzig.
Venue Details:
50 Princes Gate
Exhibition Road
SW7 2PH London
Tickets: £ 5, concessions £ 3
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