Jörg Foth
Born in Berlin in 1949. Graduated from directing at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf in Potsdam. In 1977 he started working as assistant director in GDR television, after which he worked for the DEFA film studio in the same capacity, to later become a director of feature films there. In 1985 he also started making documentary films at DEFA. Since 1991 he has been a freelance director. He has directed several dozen feature and documentary films, as well as theatre plays.
Past events
- 23.10.2015, 12:00 - 14:00, Instytut Filologii Germańskiej, DEFA: Division as identity
- 19.10.2022, 18:00 - 09.11.2022, 20:00, INKU Inkubator Sektorów Kreatywnych, Retrospective - Jörg Foth
- 20.10.2022, 18:00 - 21:30, Radio Szczecin, The SeFF'22 Opening Ceremony
Films
- Tuba Wa Duo1988 | 11' | GER
With texts by Hans-Eckardt Wenzel, who is mainly known as a songwriter, and compositions by Lutz Glandien, the two tubers of the Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra toured the clubs and cabarets of the then shaky GDR. Taking on a dangerous challenge, Plenert and Foth filmed an 11-minute movie on the rooftop opposite the Church of Gethsemane on a weekend in October 1988. As the pre-draft dialogue track contained the word “peace,” the film was not released for distribution until January 1989, when the GDR phrase was replaced with another. Nevertheless, “Tuba Wa Duo” was not displayed once in the remaining 10 months of the existence of the GDR.
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- Ah Du jeh1988 | 15' | GER
In the 1980s, Foth put on a rock musical with medieval punk bands such as Spilwut and Tippelklimper, which was to be called “Tanzwut”. “Ah Du jeh” was filmed by Foth to get closer to this environment. Spilwut still performs today, Tippelklimper transformed into The Inchtabokatables and Corvus Corax, and nothing came out of the Foth's great rock musical in DEFA.
- Die Verweigerung1996 | 29' | GER
In the mid-1990s, a television station attempted to recruit eight East German filmmakers for a series on the Blessing from the Sermon on the Mountain. Foth chose the “Silent” (“Die Sanften”) and made the film “Die Verweigerung” (“Refusal”) about a relationship between two men in a GDR prison. Who refuses to whom, when, where, how, and why in this film, surprises and questions hasty reevaluations.
read more - Freund und Helfer auf dem Lande1992 | 15' | GER
East Germany was in uniform. The army, the police, battle groups at workplaces, the GST Society for Sport and Technology in schools, civil defence and military training at universities, plus all professions where uniforms were customarily worn made people believe that the country was unsinkable. After the coup in 1990, they just got new uniforms in place of the old ones, and began to serve the new system in place of the old one.
- Rock'n'Roll1987 | 20' | GER
Judy is an office clerk, Dean is a plumber. They spend their free time dancing. A dance that the GDR has declared war on. Straddling with reproach was treated as the work of Satan. The Seebrücke restaurant in Ahlbeck said on a sign at the entrance: Studs in studded pants undesirable! But Judy and Dean don't care about this clash of cultures, they have to dance.
- Sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen1992 | 27' | GER
East Germany was, is and remains an overwhelmingly pagan area. After 1990, a television station tried to recruit seven famous East German authors to get intellectually closer to the pleas of the Lord's Prayer. Jörg Foth portrayed the author Helga Schubert while reading the text she had prepared. The picture is complemented by the views outside the window and the surrounding area. The resulting film hybrid is called by Foth a television prayer.