Cal State Long Beach will be featuring “Ostalgie — Stories from the GDR,” a film festival addressing the issues in Germany from a perspective outside of the typical American student’s purview.
The festival is a part of the German Embassy’s nationwide “Freedom without Walls” campus initiative commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“Ostalgie” means nostalgia for life in Eastern Germany before the fall of the wall.
“We called the film festival ‘Ostalgie’ to provide a backdrop to the challenges Germany faced and still faces due to its recent past as a divided nation,” said Nele Hempel-Lamer, an associate professor of German at CSULB, in a press release. “There have been lots of problems with reunification. … Some people look back to the Communist era and feel nostalgic for the East.”
Rebecca Hermann, the student coordinator of the film series, said the fall of the Berlin Wall was a sign of the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a process that would unite Europe.
“The fact that the fall of the wall was done so peacefully is still difficult for many people to comprehend,” Hermann said. “The films that we have chosen touch on a lot of these themes.”
The film festival includes four films that will be shown on Wednesdays throughout October.
The first film is called “Good Bye Lenin!,” which was released in 2003.
“‘Good Bye Lenin!’ is a story about a young man from East Berlin whose mother, a proud Socialist, lies in a coma while the wall comes down. After she wakes up, he tries to hide the fact that East Germany no longer exists,” Hermann said.
“The Promise,” which will be screened on Oct. 14, is more of a romantic story about a couple that gets separated while trying to escape into West Germany in the 1960s.
“The film shows their relationship through the years, up until 1989,” Hermann said.
The festival continues with “The Legend of Paul and Paula” of 1973, showing on Oct. 21, and the event closes with “I Was Nineteen,” which was released in 1968, on Oct. 28.
“‘Paul and Paula’ is … kind of wacky, and the fashion and music is great,” Hermann said. “[‘I Was Nineteen’] is based on a true story about a young German-born soldier in the Red Army.”
Curtis Maughan, a German graduate student, said he is looking forward to seeing all four films.
“This film festival is a perfect combination of two great interests of mine: German history/culture and film.” Maughan said.
Even though Maughan has already seen “Good Bye Lenin!,” he said he’s really interested in watching the other three, which he’s never heard of.
“It’s great being exposed to other perspectives, like those of the East and West German directors, before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Maughan said.
Hempel-Lamer said American students could learn a lot about the Cold War from these films.
“The film series is a great opportunity for American audiences to see life during the Cold War from a German perspective,” she said.
According to Hempel-Lamer, there will also be an introduction before, and a Q-and-A session after the film screenings.
“We thought that a film series would be a great way to teach students about things that they may not have known about East and West Germany,” Hermann said. “There are a lot of great German films centered on the idea of the Berlin Wall.”
All four films will be shown at 6:30 p.m. in Lecture Hall 151 on their respective Wednesdays. The screenings are free and open to the public.