Wittstock! The legendary documentary film cycle

One of the declared aims of state-funded cultural work in communist East Germany, which called itself "workers' and peasants' state", was to put workers in the spotlight, portray them in films and on stage, to sing about them or immortalise them in literature. The way Volker Koepp portrayed the textile workers of the VEB Obertrikotagenbetrieb "Ernst Lück" from 1974 onwards, however, was not what the state party SED had in mind: The workers (all of them women) openly criticised the production conditions in their factory in front of Koepp's camera. Nevertheless, Koepp persuaded the factory management (which changed multiple times over a short period of time) again and again to allow the filming, and so the camera is still there when the women are frustrated because even after ten years the experiment of putting this factory on an open field in a rural region without much industry to speak of is not going well at all. Nevertheless, the factory near the small town of Wittstock upon the Dosse in the north-west of what today is the German Land of Brandenburg had almost 3,000 (overwhelmingly female) employees at the end of the GDR. Volker Koepp accompanied the workers with his camera for more than 20 years, starting in 1974, and ending after the communist East German state faltered and united with West Germany. His Wittstock films are an invaluable historical document on film.

The way Volker Koepp portrayed the textile workers of the VEB Obertrikotagenbetrieb "Ernst Lück" from 1974 onwards, however, was not what the state party SED had in mind: The workers (all of them women) openly criticised the production conditions in their factory in front of Koepp's camera.

Nevertheless, Koepp persuaded the factory management (which changed multiple times over a short period of time) again and again to allow the filming, and so the camera is still there when the women are frustrated because even after ten years the experiment of putting this factory on an open field in a rural region without much industry to speak of is not going well at all. Nevertheless, the factory near the small town of Wittstock upon the Dosse in the north-west of what today is the German Land of Brandenburg had almost 3,000 (overwhelmingly female) employees at the end of the GDR.

Volker Koepp accompanied the workers with his camera for more than 20 years, starting in 1974, and ending after the communist East German state faltered and united with West Germany. His Wittstock films are an invaluable historical document on film.

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