The Wendeflicks, Jörg Foth, and DEFA after Censorship: Letztes aus der Da-Da-eR (Latest from the Da-Da-eR, Jörg Foth, 1990)

Abstract

An important day for East Germans was November 9, 1989. After massive demonstrations in the streets of their cities for democracy and freedom to travel, the SED declared in a television news conference that travel restrictions had been suspended. Only minutes later, thousands of East Berliners congregated at the crossing checkpoints and streamed into West Berlin as soon as border police opened the gates. This historic event, called Wende (turning point), would change East Germany forever. In less than a year, East Germany constituted itself into five states, held free and democratic elections, and eventually joined the West German Federal Republic of Germany on October 3, 1990. Four days later, Jörg Foth’s film Letztes aus der Da-Da-eR (Latest from the Da-Da-eR) premiered at the Berlin cinema Babylon in the already unified Germany. Originally intended to be screened as a satirical and “uncompromising exposure of a bankrupt and ossified state” on this date—East Germany’s forty-first anniversary—history had now turned Letztes into a swan song on a vanished country.¹ Now, more than 20 years later, watching the film can be a frustrating experience for contemporary German and international audiences as it requires viewers to be equipped with certain background knowledge to decode the plethora of visual information and pointed dialogue contained in the film.