Berlinale:

Retrospective

Film stills from the 2012 Retrospective programme

Since 1977, the Berlin International Film Festival has organised film history Retrospectives in cooperation with the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen. The Retrospective is always dedicated to an important director or a film history theme. The Retrospective brings German and international films back to the big screen, often with a restored version or new copy. Contemporary film is positioned within a historical context.

Retrospective 2012: The Red Dream Factory

The Retrospective of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival has rediscovered a legendary German-Russian film studio: Mezhrabpom-Film and its German branch Prometheus wrote film history from 1922 to 1936.

Quelle: Collection Cinémathèque suisse. Droits réservés
Source: Collection Cinémathèque suisse. All rights reserved.
Boris Barnet: Okraina, 1933

Moisei Aleinikov, a Russian film expert and producer from tsarist times who had a great instinct for the right topics, and Willi Münzenberg, a German communist and “red media entrepreneur”, joined forces in 1922 to combine clever business ideas, a political mission and boundless enthusiasm for new cinematic narratives. And so the film studio Mezhrabpom-Rus (later called Mezhrabpom-Film), a unique German-Russian film venture, was set up in Moscow, with headquarters in Berlin.

After producing some 600 films, this international experiment was brutally ended eleven and fourteen years later by Hitler’s and Stalin’s regimes. Entitled “The Red Dream Factory”, the Retrospective of the 2012 Berlinale will be dedicated to this studio rediscovered in Russian archives.

The Retrospective will present some 30 programmes made up of over 40 silent and sound films. The silent films will all be accompanied by live music performed by renowned artists. The film programme will be accompanied by discussions and events at the Deutsche Kinemathek. Berlin’s Bertz + Fischer will also be publishing a book for the Retrospective. In it, German and Russian authors will illuminate the development of the studio and the aesthetics of the films that were produced there.

Sergey Eisenstein: Oktjabr, 1928

In cooperation with Arte/ZDF, the Berlinale presents Sergei Eisenstein’s classic Oktjabr (October, 1928).
The film about the revolution in October of 1917 has written film history, particularly due to its crowd scenes. The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra will accompany the screening on February 10th, 2012 at the Friedrichstadt-Palast with the original, reconstructed soundtrack by composer Edmund Meisel.



Section director Rainer Rother previews the Retrospective in an informative interview.

Retrospective programme 2012

Previous Retrospectives:

RETROSPECTIVES SINCE 1977

The Retrospective has been managed by the Deutsche Kinemathek since 1977 that has organised the following Retrospectives:

  • Ingmar Bergman. Film as life and life as film (2011)
  • PLAY IT AGAIN...! 60 Years Berlinale (2010)
  • 70 mm - Bigger than Life (2009)
  • Luis Buñuel (2008)
  • City Girls. Images of Women in Silent Film (2007)
  • Dream Girls. Film Stars in the 1950s (2006)
  • Production Design + Film. Locations, Settings, Spaces (2005)
  • New Hollywood 1967-1976. Trouble in Wonderland (2004)
  • F. W. Murnau (2003)
  • European 60's (2002)
  • Fritz Lang (2001)
  • Artificial People (2000)
  • Otto Preminger (1999)
  • Siodmak Bros. Berlin - London - Paris - Hollywood (1998)
  • G. W. Pabst (1997)
  • William Wyler (1996)
  • Happy Birthday, Cinema! (1995)
    • Buster Keaton 100
    • Slapstick & Co.
    • Projecto Lumiere - A Tribute to Pordenone
  • Erich von Stroheim (1994)
  • CinemaScope (1993)
  • Babelsberg. A film studio (1992)
  • Cold War (1991)
  • The Year 1945 (1990)
    40 Years Berlinale (1990)
  • Europe 1939 (1989)
    Erich Pommer (1989)
  • Colour. The History of Colour Film (1988)
  • Rouben Mamoulian (1987)
  • Henny Porten (1986)
  • Special Effects (1985)
  • Ernst Lubitsch 1914-1933 (1984)
  • Exile. Six Actors from Germany (1983)
  • Insurrection of Emotions: Curtis Bernhardt (1982)
    East German Children’s Films (1982)
  • The Producer: The Films of Michael Balcon (1981)
  • Billy Wilder (1980)
    3D Films (1980)
  • Rudolph Valentino (1979)
  • We Danced Around the World. Revue Films (1979)
  • Marlene Dietrich, Part 2 (1978)
  • Censorship – Banned German Films 1933-1945 (1978)
  • Marlene Dietrich, Part 1 (1977)
    Love, Death and Technology. Cinema of the Fantastical 1933-1945 (1977)

RETROSPECTIVES BEFORE 1977

1976

  • Eleanor Powell
  • Conrad Veidt, Part 2
  • Great German Films 1929-1932
  • German Short Films of the 1930s, Part 2

1975

  • Greta Garbo
  • Conrad Veidt, Part 1
  • German Short Films of the 1930s, Part 1

1974

  • Lilian Harvey
  • Jacques Feyder
  • Norman McLaren

1973

  • Wilhelm/William Dieterle
  • American Musicals
  • Animations by Dave Fleischer

1972

  • Douglas Fairbanks
  • Ludwig Berger
  • American Animations 1940-1955

1971

  • Busby Berkeley
  • Eddie Cantor

1970

  • Winners of the "Golden Bears" and Other Berlinale Films
  • Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire

1969

  • Abel Gance
  • Musicals 1929-1950
  • Oskar Fischinger

1968

  • Ernst Lubitsch, Part 2
  • W. C. Fields

1967

  • Ernst Lubitsch, Part 1
  • Harry Langdon

1966

  • Cinema Novo
  • Max Ophüls
  • Mack Sennett

1965

  • Masterpieces of German Film1895-1932

1964

  • Louis Lumière
  • Pola Negri
  • Paul Leni

1963

  • Elisabeth Bergner
  • E. A. Dupont
  • Karl Grune
  • Yasujiro Ozu

1962

  • Asta Nielsen
  • G. W. Pabst
  • Ingmar Bergman

1961

  • Richard Oswald
  • Billy Wilder
  • Akira Kurosawa

1960

  • 10 Years Golden Berlin Bear
  • Musicals from 1930-1945
  • Musicals from 1930-1945 (Experimental film special programme)

1959

  • International Masterpieces from the Early Years of Talkies

1958

  • Masterpieces of International Film from 1915 to 1945

1957

  • German Artists in Foreign Film

1956

  • The Humour of Nations

1955

  • 60 Years Film

1954

  • Showcase of Famous Films

1951-1953

  • Silent Movies

Source: Collection Cinémathèque suisse. All rights reserved

A German-Russian film experiment

In an informative interview, Rainer Rother previews the Retrospective at the 2012 Berlinale. And he not only talks about Mezhrabpom (the German-Russian film studio), exciting film discoveries and the main actors [...]

Detailed film list of the Retrospective 2012 for download, pdf (only in German) (17 KB)

Go To:

Section Director
Rainer Rother

Contact

Programme Coordination, Press
Ralf Dittrich

Programme Organisation
Julia Pattis
Dirk Förstner

Publication
Karin Herbst-Meßlinger

Retrospective & Homage
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
phone +49 · 30 · 300 903 · 25
fax +49 · 30 · 300 903 · 13
 

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