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Whither Germany?
(Kuhle Wampe)

Screening on Film
Directed by Slatan Dudow.
With Hertha Thiele, Ernst Busch, Adolf Fischer.
Germany, 1932, 16mm, black & white, 90 min.
German with English subtitles.

Based on a screenplay co-written by Bertolt Brecht, Whither Germany? is the only Weimar-era film with explicitly Communist politics. Subject to censorship upon its release and banned outright when Hitler came to power, the film depicts the concerns of a working class woman as she and her family struggle to survive, living in a true-to-life tent-city on the outskirts of town before ultimately finding fulfillment in a left-wing workers group. The influence of Russian film theory is evident in Bulgarian director Dudow’s use of montage and rapid editing to convey meaning and in Hanns Eisler’s emphatic score.

Part of film series

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Decadent Shadows. The Cinema of Weimar Germany

Current and upcoming film series

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The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig