Das Kino der DDR und seine Zuschauer
W. Brandt Center invites to participate in a prof. Joseph Garncarz’s lecture ‘Das Kino der DDR und seine Zuschauer. Neue Perspektiven medienhistorischer Forschung’ (‘GDR’s cinema and its audience. New perspectives in research on the history of media’). This meeting will take place on the 22nd of November at 5:00 p.m. in 13 CSNE classroom (ul. Strażnicza 1-3, Wrocław) and will be carried on in German.
GDR’s cinema was organized by the leadership of SED party in a way to mould citizens as “socialist personalities”. However, the majority of the audience resisted the indoctrination and, at the box office, most often chose rarely played Western entertainment films. During this lecture, there will be presented prof. Garncarz’s methods and results of research on this topic. They are based on various files such as: official documents, GDR’s cinemas’ files kept in Bundesarchiv in Berlin and annual lists of the most popular films, reconstructed for the 1950-1989 period.
Joseph Garncarz is a professor at the Institute for Media Culture and Theatre at the University of Cologne and is engaged in the history of film and media. He is the author of multiple books incl.: Begeisterte Zuschauer. Die Macht des Kinopublikums in der NS-Diktatur (2021), Medienwandel (2016), Wechselnde Vorlieben. Über die Filmpräferenzen der Europäer, 1896-1939 (2015; Polish publication: Zmienność upodobań. O preferencjach filmowych Europejczyków w latach 1896-1939, 2022), Hollywood in Deutschland. Zur Internationalisierung der Kinokultur 1925–1990 (2013), Maßlose Unterhaltung. Zur Etablierung des Films in Deutschland 1896–1914 (2010, Willy Haas Award 2011). He published multiple articles about German and European cinema in journals such as ‘Film History’, ‘Early Popular Visual Culture’, ‘Cinema & Cie’, ‘Hitchcock Annual’, ‘Iluminace’; he published in collective volumes as well. His published works were translated into English, French, Czech and Polish. Currently, he is leading a project about the audiences of theatres in GDR ‘The Viewers’ Choice: On the Film Preferences of Cinemagoers in the GDR, 1949–1990’.
Translated by Zuzanna Zapora (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
