Every Berlinale, I have to see a short film collection. Last year it was the retrospective, this year I am watching children’s films: There are the 60 year DEFA celebration films and on Sunday, I also picked up some short films in the Generation competition. I am a sucker for old so it was a given for me that I would be seeing these. It was early in the day and the cinema was packed with huge groups of children – I have not seen this many children ever since “Mary & Max” back in the Babylon.
Die Flucht zu den Pinguinen
GDR 1984, Günter Rätz, 9′
In retrospect, this one was my favorite. Is this movie available somewhere? It was beautifully drawn, had an adorable story and is generally the kind of film that makes me love animated films so much. The moderator announced to the children about how all these films were made by hand and stressed what impressive artistic work it all was – and it was indeed. This film was its best example.
Die Suche nach dem Vogel Turlipan
GDR 1976, Kurt Weiler, 13′
A professor looks for a specific species of bird, Turlipan, while all other professor say such a bird does not exist. In the end the professor did not find Turlipan but he went through a beautiful adventure. Sadly I really had to go to the restroom so I couldn’t see all of this film, but in terms of visuals I thought it was stunning, and it’s the kind of beautiful message I would want to impart to children. This is “Millennium Actress” as a short film.
Pünktchen
GDR 1964, Bruno J. Böttge, 7′
This is just a short little film with moving dots and lines, chasing each other and recollecting. It was cute and I enjoyed it.
Alarm im Kasperletheater
GDR 1960, Lothar Barke, 16′
I showed this film to O once and ever since he has been loving it. He cries because he is only allowed to watch it once, and he wants to watch it pretty much everyday. I doubt he understands all of the story (and I try to explain it to him), but he likes the colorful characters, the chases and – especially – the kind grandma haha.
Meta Morfoss
GDR 1978, Monika Anderson, 15′
Girl can turn into all kinds of objects and does much mischief with it. I had mixed feelings about this story. The idea and the execution of all those different things Meta changes into are really awesome, but the story itself was strangely silly. I am not sure I liked how carefree and ultimately troublesome this little girl was.
Vom Fröschlein und seinem Reifen
GDR 1964, Heinz Nagel, 4′
A very short, straightforward little black and white film – I barely remember it but I know that I enjoyed it.
Urwaldmärchen
GDR 1977, Katja Georgi, 15′
OK actually I didn’t like this one. Set in an “exotic” country which looks mildly racist from today’s standards, the story was basically about a dude his newfound dragon friend who is just sweet and naive to woo a princess. Then the whole thing was 15 minutes long. Goodness.
Gegner nach Maß
GDR 1963, Bruno J. Böttge, 5 ‘
This little short story made me laugh, and I really liked the way it was made. The main character was a paper cut-out and he was given a pair of scissors to “create” his own antagonist. The slightly sarcastic wordplay on how the protagonist was just a lame “paper hero” at the end was simply lovely. In terms of concept and execution, this was probably the most creative film.