Super 8 Scene
For the subculture scene of the 1980s, working with a Super 8 camera offered a largely free field of experimentation. While the film productions of DEFA, the state-owned film studio in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), were monitored by the government and modern video technology was not available to private individuals for economic and political reasons, the official art and culture policy did not consider Super 8 to be an artistic medium.1 The Soviet narrow film camera Quarz came onto the market in the GDR for the amateur field in 1968. A. R. Penck, who lived in Dresden at the time, was one of the first artists to turn to Super 8 technology starting in the mid-1970s. In the 1980s, a virtual boom in narrow film began among the younger generation of people born in the GDR around 1960.2 The early protagonists of the scene were often painters. These artists worked in an intermedial manner and pursued an experimental handling of film material. Films were painted, scratched, and cut up and shown as performative stagings with lots of improvisation.
The film aesthetic and the free, at times uninhibited handling of Super 8 films was strongly influenced by the quality of the technology that was available. While the cameras were affordable—a Quarz camera could be purchased for roughly 250 GDR Marks3—they had a clockwork motor for transporting the film, whereby only thirty seconds at a time could be recorded and the speed of the film transport slowed down after twenty seconds. Contacts from the Federal Republic of Germany could be helpful: around 1985, Gabriele Stötzer received a Bauer camera from the West German filmmaker Christa Maar, whom she had gotten to know when Maar was doing research on women in East Germany. Black-and-white and color films produced by ORWO in the GDR and by ASSO in the Soviet Union could be bought in drug stores. It was, however, only possible to obtain slide film, which could only be copied with a poor quality.4 Moreover, films and projectors had no audio track. The images either had to speak for themselves or were presented along with cassettes or live music played back in parallel. The lack of synchronicity balanced out the change in projection speed—each presentation was unique and comparable with a premiere.5 The DEFA film lab in Berlin-Johannisthal developed the films as the sole provider of this service in the GDR. Due to the centralized development of film, the Ministry for State Security (Stasi) was able to obtain access to them, but generally did not do so.6
The Super 8 film scene in the GDR was relatively small as a whole. In the early 1980s, among others, Gino Hahnemann, Cornelia Schleime, Christine Schlegel, Helge Leiberg, Gabriele Stötzer, Thomas Ranft, Lutz Dammbeck, and Andreas Dress turned to Super 8 film as a field of experimentation and inspired one another reciprocally.7 The results could first be seen in the apartments, studios, and rear courtyards of mainly East Berlin artists such as Petra Schramm and Wilfriede Maaß. Stötzer networked the scene in Erfurt: in 1983, she invited Hahnemann and Schleime to present their films at an artist party organized by Rolf and Stephanie Lindner. In 1987, she bought all the tickets for the Kino Klub on Hirschlachufer and then sold them again for five marks in order to be able to show her films before an audience.8
In the mid-1980s, the characteristics of films and the public perception of them changed. With Mario Achsnik, Thomas Werner, Cornelia Klauß, and Thomas Frydetzki, new protagonists whose films were much more narrative appeared.9 The festival Intermedia I: Klangbild – Farbklang, which took place at the Clubhaus Coswig in 1985 and was organized by Christoph Tannert and Michael Kapinos, is regarded as the first important event for networking the subculture scene to which filmmakers were also invited. Staring in 1987, platforms for exchange were established: the largest gathering for the independent film scene in the GDR, organized by Claudia Reichardt (Wanda), took place at the Hochschule für bildende Künste (University of Fine Arts, HfbK) in Dresden with the names filma morgana (1987), filma secunda (1988), and filma tribuna (1989).10 In follow-up to filma morgana, Thomas Werner released the first issue of his self-published magazine Koma-Kino, which, until 1989, served as a place to publish film exposés, announcements, commentaries on the state of the Super 8 scene, and photos in a total of six issues. A film program put together by the gallerist Gunnar Barthel could be seen at the Galerie Oben in Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1987 and subsequently traveled to Annaberg-Buchholz, Cottbus, and Leipzig. In the Federal Republic, artists who had left the GDR ensured the presentation of the East German film scene. Schleime and Leiberg organized Stötzer and Hahnemann’s participation in the West Berlin festival Tage des Schmalfilms (Narrow Film Festival) in 1985, and GDR artists presented films from East Germany at the 7th Osnabrück Experimental Film Workshop. Despite such networking activities, the Super 8 film scene was never really closed. The exchange was characterized by controversies and hostilities, which became apparent at the meetings at the HfbK in Dresden, among other places, already before the political shift.11 In addition, the scene thinned out more and more as artists left for the West.12 After the fall of the Berlin Wall, access to video technology finally replaced Super 8 to a great extent. Claus Löser and Karin Fritzsche simultaneously initiated the archive ex.oriente.lux, which is affiliated with the Brotfabrik cultural center in Berlin and is still today devoted to preserving the narrow film legacy of the GDR.
1 ↩ See, among others, Dieter Daniels, “Auf der Suche nach dem Land der Ahnungslosen,” in Grauzone 8 mm: Materialien zum autonomen Künstlerfilm in der DDR, ed. Dieter Daniels and Jeanette Stoschek (Ostfildern, 2007), pp. 9–14, esp. p. 9.
2 ↩ Claus Löser relates this to the expatriation of Wolf Biermann in 1976 and the growing dissatisfaction within the subculture scene in the GDR connected with this. See Claus Löser, “Vorab,” in Gegenbilder: Filmische Subversion in der DDR 1976 bis 1989, ed. Karin Fritzsche and Claus Löser (Berlin, 1996), pp. 5–24, esp. pp. 6–7.
3 ↩ Ibid., p. 17.
4 ↩ Generally, no copies of them were made. The originals were instead shown at the presentations and their quality thus worsened with each presentation.
5 ↩ See Thomas Werner, “Hoffnung – Super 8 Film,” in Koma-Kino 2 (October 1987), n.p.
6 ↩ The Stasi confiscated films, usually during house searches, and imposed penalties for unauthorized presentation. See Löser (note 2), pp. 14–15.
7 ↩ Gabriele Stötzer and Cornelia Schleime were so enthusiastic about a film presentation by Gino Hahnemann in a rear courtyard in Berlin in 1982 that they began working with narrow film themselves. According to statements made by Irmgard Senf, Jens Tukiendorf, and Matthias Schneider personally, Stötzer’s films inspired them to try out the medium in Erfurt.
8 ↩ Both events are documented in Stötzer’s Stasi files. For the film presentation, she was issued a penalty on March 10, 1987 (see Stötzer Archive).
9 ↩ See, among others, http://www.perfomap.de/map2/geschichte/intermedia-ddr (accessed in September 2022).
10 ↩ See Daniels (note 1), p. 14.
11 ↩ Conversations with the protagonists in the documentary film Die subversive Kamera: Die Super-8-Filmszene in der DDR by Cornelia Klau. (1996) provide good insights into the work situation, films, and motivation of the artists.
12 ↩ See, among others, Claudia Reichardt (Wanda), “Die Treffen der Super-8-Filmer in Dresden,” in Gegenbilder: Filmische Subversionen in der DDR 1976–1989, ed. Karin Fritzsche and Claus Löser, pp. 104–106.