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Renowned DEFA Director Beyer Dead at 74
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Frank Beyer |
Frank Beyer, one of East Germany’s most well known film directors and the only GDR director ever nominated for a foreign film Oscar (“Jacob the Liar” in 1975), died on Sunday, October 1 in Berlin at age 74.
Over the course of his long career, Beyer became both the most celebrated and most censored director in East German cinema.
Born in 1932 in Nobitz in eastern Germany, Beyer attended the FAMU film school in Prague from 1952-1957. Following graduation, he began directing films at the highly regarded DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) studios at Babelsberg film city in Potsdam. However, Beyer was forced out of DEFA when his 1966 film “Spur der Steine” (The Trace of Stones), was deemed a critical affront by the communist GDR government. He was forbidden to work in Berlin and Potsdam.
Today, the film is considered among Beyer’s biggest successes and counts as one of the milestones of German film history, launching the career of popular actor Manfred Krug.
Being banned from the only film studio in the GDR, Beyer went to work as a stage director at the State Theater in Dresden from 1967 to 1969 and then began making television movies for East German television in 1970.
Four years later, he was once again allowed to direct feature films for DEFA again. Yet when his film “Geschlossene Gesellschaft” (Closed Society) was banned, he accepted an assignment to direct a television film in West Germany and consequently was expelled from the Communist Party.
Over the course of his long career, Beyer became both the most celebrated and most censored director in East German cinema.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Beyer turned to reconstructing the tumultuous events that precipitated the implosion of the GDR in his film “Nikolaikirche,” named for the Leipzig church where the seeds of peaceful protest were born.
Beyer’s films are marked by anti-war and anti-fascist themes and are known for a discreet, understated style and, often, for a comic deftness rare in East German cinema. They generated considerable interest and critical acclaim in West Germany and the United States.
A recipient of many national and international awards, Beyer is the only GDR filmmaker to have been nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film (“Jacob the Liar”).
Photograph by G. Linke
October 6, 2006
Event Note: From November 6 to December 7, 2006 the Goethe Institut Washington in cooperation with the National Gallery of Art, AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center and the DEFA Film Library present “Rebels With a Cause: The Cinema of East Germany.” For a film list and show times, check the following websites:
 National Gallery of Art
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