In the age of digital film prints, the DEFA Foundation faces the challenge of transferring its films to this new format. Since 2012, the foundation has digitalized over 320 feature-length films and shorts and made them available for distribution as DCPs. The new "DEFA digital" series presents particularly exciting digitization projects. Melanie Hauth, the foundation's project manager, will provide insights into the restoration process at each screening.To kick off, we are showing DAS BEIL VON WANDSBEK (Falk Harnack, GDR 1951), a film based on the eponymous novel by Arnold Zweig about a master butcher (played by Erwin Geschonneck) who becomes an executor for the Nazis and has a breakdown. The film was banned soon after its release and only screened in full in the 1980s. In SEILERGASSE 8 (Joachim und Günter Kunert, GDR 1960), a GDR criminalist looks into the murder of a young woman. His son is also a suspect. (jh)(6.2.)
