Ten important DEFA movies

This was the first DEFA feature film, and the first post-war German feature film. Director Wolfgang Staudte's flick is set in bombed-out Berlin in 1945 and tells the story of a young photographer and concentration camp survivor who returns to Berlin after the war.

"Heart of Stone," shot at the film studios Babelsberg, is not only the first DEFA color movie, but also the East German studio's first fairy tale adaptation. The plot is based on Wilhelm Hauff's fairy tale of the same name. With roughly ten million viewers, it was one of the most successful DEFA films ever. At the 1951 Karlovy Vary Film Festival it won the award for best color film.

The German-Bulgarian production is considered to be the first German film that looks at the Germans' responsibility for the Holocaust. The story of a small village occupied by Germans in 1943 was shot near the Bulgarian capital Sofia. The protagonist is a Wehrmacht sergeant who would rather paint than supervise civilian workers.

The DEFA Animation Studio in Dresden made about 950 animated films, including this 16-minute cartoon. One of the studio's best-known cartoon productions, it's an East German TV animation classic.

The first DEFA Western starred the popular Yugoslav actor Gojko Mitic and launched his career as "GDR Chief Native American." Not new to the genre, he'd played a supporting role in three film adaptations of Karl May novels set in the American West. Initially, Mitic's German was a bit choppy, so his voice was always dubbed.

Premiering in Potsdam, it ran in several cinemas before being removed for "anti-socialist tendencies." Almost all DEFA films were banned in the wake of the 11th plenary session of the Central Committee of the East German Communist Party in 1965, called the "clearcut" session. The film wasn't shown again in East Germany until October 1989. A year later, it made it to the Berlin Film Festival.

The cult film with Czech actress Libuse Safrankova in the title role was a co-production of DEFA and the Czech Barrandov Film Studios. It's been a staple on German public broadcasters' TV programs over the Christmas holidays for years. The original venues at Moritzburg Castle are a tourist attraction, and the staircase where Cinderella lost her shoe is a popular location for marriage proposals.

This DEFA film was a literary adaptation of Jurek Becker's novel of the same name. It went down in East German film history as the only DEFA film to be nominated for an Oscar in the category of best foreign language film.

Directed by Peter Kahane, the film tells the story of the architect Daniel Brenner, a man broken down by the East German system. Shining a light on failed state building policies and generational conflict in East Germany, the film is more openly critical of the system than any other.

…. Encounters between May 1 and July 1, 1990" is a 1990 documentary with an unwieldy title that focuses on people living in that East Berlin district in a politically turbulent time. The seamstresses at a clothing factory worry about their professional future, and Harald Hauswald, an East Berlin photographer, answers questions.