Screening the East considers German filmmakers’ responses to unification. In particular, it traces the representation of the East German community in films made since 1989 and considers whether these narratives challenge or reinforce the notion of a separate East German identity. The book identifies and analyses a large number of films, from internationally successful box-office hits, to lesser-known productions, many of which are discussed here for the first time. Providing an insight into the films’ historical and political context, it considers related issues such as stereotyping, racism, regional particularism and the Germans’ confrontation with the past.

Screening the East considers German filmmakers’ responses to unification. In particular, it traces the representation of the East German community in films made since 1989 and considers whether these narratives challenge or reinforce the notion of a separate East German identity. The book identifies and analyses a large number of films, from internationally successful box-office hits, to lesser-known productions, many of which are discussed here for the first time. Providing an insight into the films’ historical and political context, it considers related issues such as stereotyping, racism, regional particularism and the Germans’ confrontation with the past.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction

• Films and Identity: Reflecting the Nation
• Heimat, Memory and Nostalgia

Chapter 1. Mapping Identity

• After Unity: Stereotypes and Dissent
• A Post-GDR Identity?
• Ostalgie - Recharging the Batteries of Identity

Chapter 2. Heimat Stories: East Meets West

• The Heimatfilm: Past Genres for Present Tensions
• Heimatas Refuge
• Locating Heimat in the GDR
• Screening Heimat in the GDR
• Contesting Heimat
• An Island Mentality:D Brocken
• Heimat Found?Go Trabi Go II. Das war der wilde Osten
• Conclusion: Triumph of the Underdog

Chapter 3. Lost Landscapes

• Provincial Fears and Loathing
• Escaping Heimat
• Failed Utopia?
• Paradise Lost?
• Post-unification Landscapes: Charting Memory
• Stories from the Margins
• Still Life: Representing the East
• Memory and Loss
• Neben der Zeit: Memories in Ruins, Ruined Memories
• Landscape and Meaning

Chapter 4. At the Back of Beyond: Heimat East

• On the Road Again
• The Occidental Tourists: Wir Können auch anders
• Resisting Stereotypes
• On the Run
• The Community as Mob
• Borderland/Bored Land
• Community Undone

Chapter 5. Berlin: Disorientation/Reorientation

• After Unification: Lapsus memoriae?
• No-Man’s Land
• Orientations
• Haunted by the Past
• Disorientation
• New Cartographies: Berlin is in Germany

Chapter 6. Good Bye, Ostalgie?

• Commodifying the Past
• Disneyland GDR
• Reimagining the GDR
• Recycling the Past: Der Zimmerspringbrunnen
• Reconstructing the GDR
• Between Ostalgie and Westalgie
• Fade to Grey: NVA
• Stasiland GDR

Conclusion

• A Community Apart?
• Towards Normalization?

Filmography
Bibliography
Index