FREE German Movie Night / Filmabend

Two free movies are being screened: Two documentaries about East Germany, before and after unification.

Movie #1: Radfahrer (The cyclist, 27 Min).

Synopsis: The photographer Harald Hauswald was followed by Stasi-agents from 1983 until the fall of the Berlin Wall. This film by Marc Thümmler shows black-and-white images of daily life in East Germany, images that were not to be published, because they did not match the self-image of the GDR leadership: punks, drunkards, crumbling houses. These scenes stand in contrast to passages read from the Stasi-files on the photographer. Movie #2: Die Maßnahme (The measure, 59 Min, 2008).

Synopsis: Gerbstedt, a small town in Saxony-Anhalt: 24 per cent of inhabitants are unemployed. The employment office declares the town a trial location: by providing paid “civic work“, it is hoped to reintegrate all the long-term unemployed into the labour market. What starts off as a promising initiative, ends on a sobering note. Organized by the German Canadian Association of Nova Scotia & Dalhousie University German Department, with support from the Goethe Institute Montreal.

Movies are free. Films shown in German, with English subtitles.