Jürgen Böttcher

History and art in Berlin's new center. Like a fossil, the Marx-Engels-Forum, a large, ambitious monument project of the GDR, adorns a central historical spot in the middle of Berlin. Boettcher's experimental documentary transforms footage he shot of the creation of this monument in the 1980s into new material. A story about the loss of a monument's meaning.

Open details →

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

Open details →

Impressionistic East German documentary filmed mainly in the Georgian countryside in 1986-1987. The director, a painter, wanted to see if similar scenes to those found in the work of Georgian painter Niko Pirosmanishvili still existed there.

Open details →

This documentary follows a group of women on a typical workday as they prepare meals for a dockyard in Rostock. The viewer never learns their names - there are no interviews. The women are presented simply as workers: cooking, cleaning, hauling, and serving dishes amid clanking pots and hot steam.

Open details →

This film portraits the artist and model-builder Hermann Gloeckner, who was born in Dresden in 1889. Even at the age of 96 he is still drawing with undiminished creative energy.

Open details →

Experienced shunters working at the Dresden-Friedrichstadt goods yard. In all weathers, day and night, they couple and uncouple the wagons. The air is full of sound: hammering, steps crunching on the gravel, whistles and shunting noises.

Open details →

Potter's Bull is the first part of the "Over-Paintings" Trilogy (Uebermalungen) by painter and director STRAWALDE (Juergen Boettcher). Paulus Potter's simple postcard scene entitled "The Young Bull" ("den jungen Stier") is artistically alienated in an imposing fashion. By using assorted means of "painting over" and/or front projections, the figure of the bull in the center of the card is placed in a state of constant flux. A viewer may also choose to follow the shifting background behind the bull, which continues to recontextualize the bull in shifting worlds. Accompanied by a sound collage.

Open details →

Venus after Giorgione is the the second part of the "Over Paintings" (Uebermalungen) trilogy by painter and director STRAWALDE (Juergen Boettcher). Using various methods of "painting over" or projecting on top of Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus," Boettcher alienates the work artistically. Venus' beauty is seen within a new context and is thereby newly interpreted through the eyes of STRAWALDE. The assorted landscapes behind Venus range from idyllic pastorales to morbid backgrounds. STRAWALDE's art knows no boundaries and makes a strong impression on the viewer with bizarre sound collages.

Open details →

With films including the 'rubble woman' portrait Martha, the three-part experimental film cycle Potter's Stier, Venus nach Giorgione and Frau am Klavichord, the portrait of the artist Kurzer Besuch bei Hermann Glöckner, and also the documentaries Rangierer and Die Küche, noted for their outstanding sound and visuals, Jürgen Böttcher distances himself yet further from the didactic tone and abstract heroic representation of socialist films.

Open details →

Martha Bieder is the last rubble-woman in Berlin Rummelsburg. Every day, rain or shine, she stands at the conveyor belt - as she has for decades - sorting through rubble. After a retirement party thrown for her by her male colleagues, she tells her story of being a rubble-woman in post-war Germany.

Open details →

Sculptor Makolies is filmed working on a sculpture in the middle of a quarry in Swiss Saxony. The quarry workers go about their work around him. Both the work in the quarry and the work on the large figure in sandstone require strenght and conscientiousness. This film observers both types of work, without comparing them.

Open details →

Documentary on the 1000-year-old town of Weimar. The film presents an example of the victory of humanist traditions over nazi brutality.

Open details →

Kochberg Castle was once owned by the von Stein family and Goethe visited Charlotte von Stein there several times. On the occasion of the "1000 years of Weimar" celebrations, the castle, which has been converted into a memorial, is being opened to the public. At the inauguration ceremony, students of the Weimar Academy of Music will give a large festive concert. On the basis of old engravings and personal letters and pictures the audience learns more about the relationship between Goethe and Charlotte von Stein.

Open details →

This color documentary tells the story of the "Mamais." In 1960, a group of workers at the Bitterfeld chemical plant set themselves the task of becoming the first "socialist brigade" in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to act in accordance with the slogan "Work, learn, and live socialist."

Open details →

A DEFA documentary celebrating the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in East Berlin in the summer of 1973. Blending reportage with staged elements, it presents the festival as a showcase of international solidarity, culture, and socialist ideals.

Open details →

In this film about apprentices of the Rewatex laundry, Böttcher once again turns to the focal concern of almost all his films the attempt to report as truthfully and impressibly as possible on the life of workers. Böttcher takes the audience into the midst of a seemingly unknown environment only to let them realize how familiar this world in fact is.

Open details →

Documenting a May Day demonstration in West Berlin in 1972

Open details →

Documentary focusing on socialism and East German industry and labour, including a script of Lenin's most famous writings and speeches.

Open details →

A black-and-white documentary film about the large housing estate "Lütten Klein" in the northwest of Rostock in June 1968. On the basis of the construction worker and shop steward Hans Schmidt, the efforts to fulfil the plan are clearly shown, even if the supplies and weather conditions are not optimal. The group meeting of the construction brigade shown here describes, among other things, the hardships and disappointments of some of the workers on the construction site. On the other hand, the construction management and shop steward Schmidt try to motivate the workers to achieve even higher performance by demanding competition and obligations.

Open details →

This black and white documentary film reports from the Berlin Zoo, located in the Friedrichsfelde district of the Lichtenberg district, was opened in 1955 and is the largest landscape animal garden in Europe with an area of 160 hectares. With shots worth seeing, you can experience the animals in their enclosures and spacious free running areas. The film gets along completely without commentary and directs the concentrated view to hippos, parrots, camels, red deer, bison, llamas, kangaroos, rhinoceroses; lynxes, birds, leopards, tigers, lions, polar bears and crocodiles.

Open details →

Presentation of a commited State Party secretary at the Chemicals Combine in Buna. A former miner and small farmer rises to a leading political position.

Open details →

Film report about the meeting of the youth organization of the GDR (FDJ = Freie Deutsche Jugend) with guests from 57 countries as well as the 8th Parliament (similar to a party congress) in Karl-Marx-Stadt, today Chemnitz.

Open details →

Originally banned in 1966, East German director Jürgen Böttcher's tale of love and disillusionment among two newlyweds attempting to navigate the treacherous world of marriage was never officially released in his homeland until after reunification in 1990.

Open details →

Summertime in Prerow at the Baltic Sea. A cheerful film with the spirit of the sixties.

Open details →

This black and white documentary film reports on a brigade of women, they are the "stars" of a Berlin light bulb factory. What is striking is the cordiality and good cooperation within the women's group, despite their monotonous work in the control area in the production of tungsten wires, also called filaments. Original tones are inserted to convey the joys, the cheerfulness and quick-wittedness that they have despite their burden of family and work. A problem of the wrong way of counting the female workers is openly addressed by the brigade leader and in a countercut Inge introduces her baby to her colleagues in the company. Everything seems like one big family and nobody can really imagine being without this work.

Open details →

At the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost an der Oder, a new blast furnace is being moved to replace a burnt-out one. 2000 tons have to be moved 18 meters: Three times we hear it in the commentary. Master Klaus is now in command. His orders are to be obeyed at all costs. Men at work: tense faces, examining hands, the sound of screeching winds and steel cables stretched to breaking point. Everything is going well, and it is a new best performance: The downtime of the plant has been reduced from 80 to 40 days, the commentary says.

Open details →

A cinematic visit to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The camera usually observes the visitors and paints their views on scenes of the ensemble of figures. The amazement at the beauty and grace of the antique sculptures is reflected in the faces of the viewers and emotion is palpable. The visitors come from all over the world - one sees Indians, Asians, Blacks. All age groups are represented, from children to old people. They come individually or in groups and communicate about what they see. The film gets along without any comment. You see more pictures of the visitors than of the altar. This means that it is important for the film to show the cultural interest of the people. Gerhard Rosenfeld creates atmospheric music with a classical feel to it.

Open details →

Böttchers film showcases three young workers who learn how to paint, draw, and make sculptures out of stone. The film generated a storm of mistrust, as there is no leading communist party, and the three individuals live blithely and independently of the official dictates. It became one of the first DEFA documentary productions that were not allowed to be shown.

Open details →

Böttcher made his graduation film about young people who had become delinquent in a youth work yard in Thuringia. Already here a striking feature of his later films becomes apparent: Jürgen Böttcher gives his protagonists a lot of space; he approaches them without prejudice, empathetically and carefully. In addition, his curiosity can be felt in the life situations and stories of his characters.

Open details →

Documentary accompanies the great DEFA film director and painter Jürgen Böttcher, alias Strawalde, detail through his biographical and artistic life: from his childhood as a Nazi boy, his career and his struggles in the GDR under the SED regime, to the opening of the Wall and his international successes. He tells us very personally why he never wanted to leave the GDR and why he never wanted to break with it despite all the reprisals.

Open details →

In this interview with contemporary witnesses, painter and director Jürgen Böttcher talks about some stages of his professional career. This also includes his path to film art and his work at Deutsche Film AG (DEFA) in Potsdam-Babelsberg. He also tells of his experiences during the shooting of films such as "Barfuß und ohne Hut", "Rangierer" and the documentary film "Jahrgang 45", once banned but finally re-released at the Berlinale 2015. During the conversation, questions about the difference and similarities between painting and film, the significance of music in film, Böttcher's preference for black and white, and his criteria for choosing topics for documentary film projects will be discussed.

Open details →

Founded in 1954 as the “Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst”, today's “Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen” is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The documentary traces the history of the university. Graduates of the school have their say and excerpts of student films from five decades are presented.

Open details →

Open details →

Grabe's film about his friend, fellow filmmaker, and painter Jürgen Böttcher aka Strawalde.

Open details →

Open details →

A documentary about the deconstruction of the Berlin Wall which makes no use of vocal commentary but instead focuses on visual elements. From the Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate, the camera captures the historic events from all sides and different angles: on the one hand there are news reporters and tourists from all over the world taking pictures, children selling pieces of the wall to passers-by, and people celebrating New Year's Eve, on the other we see abandoned subway stations and officials with blank looks on their faces.

Open details →

Impressionistic East German documentary filmed mainly in the Georgian countryside in 1986-1987. The director, a painter, wanted to see if similar scenes to those found in the work of Georgian painter Niko Pirosmanishvili still existed there.

Open details →

This documentary follows a group of women on a typical workday as they prepare meals for a dockyard in Rostock. The viewer never learns their names - there are no interviews. The women are presented simply as workers: cooking, cleaning, hauling, and serving dishes amid clanking pots and hot steam.

Open details →

This film portraits the artist and model-builder Hermann Gloeckner, who was born in Dresden in 1889. Even at the age of 96 he is still drawing with undiminished creative energy.

Open details →

Experienced shunters working at the Dresden-Friedrichstadt goods yard. In all weathers, day and night, they couple and uncouple the wagons. The air is full of sound: hammering, steps crunching on the gravel, whistles and shunting noises.

Open details →