90th birthday – Winfried Junge: The human filmmaker

The children of Golzow, if they have not died, have long been old people. Winfried Junge with his camera will be there for her schooling in Golzow on September 1, 1961. Depending on the character, the six -year -old boys and girls look into the camera research or shyly. The future lies in front of them as an unknown country. Apparently it doesn’t scare them. You have the confidence in the order of the world that counteracts you on the first day in the form of letters A. A long way to the Z – and then keep on. That was the GDR’s right to educate. But the children in the Oderbruch mostly come from farmers or craftsmen families, so you stick to tangible things.

And Winfried Junge? Is only 26 years old in the middle of the first grader and hardly suspects that he is now ninety -year -old he stands out of sheer seventy -year -olds – the children of Golzow, who accompanied in 19 films until they were 50 years old. Such a long -term cinematic observation of the children of a school class is unique in the world. The US specialist sheet for film “Variety” also spoke of a “unique milestone in film history”. What kind of perseverance for everyone involved! And what a unique contribution to the cinematic memory in which the GDR found its special place. Authentically filmed life, nothing (or almost nothing) is staged, there are average children talk about themselves. A life that the Oderbruch has ready for them, with special consideration of socialism, as the GDR plans it immediately after the wall construction. There is actually an amazingly natural self -confidence, a simple pride of what you have already achieved.

In the film “If you are fourteen” from 1969, when the Golzow children get the women’s consecration, the first of them leave and start working, boy pondering: “What do I actually look like and who am I?” You could now spread about the always acute financing questions of the film project, also about the change from black and white of the early years to the color film. But the Orwo-Color films from the Wolfen film factory had their pitfalls, for a long time only tolerated “pure” light (ie only art or only natural light), with “mixed lights” a bluish stitch was immediately created.

However, Uwe Kant’s commenting texts sometimes had something too salbing, are almost like whipped cream in the pictures, but this stylized tone contrasts in his sometimes jovial, sometimes pointed way to insert unexpectedly questions. Nobody is manipulated here, you always have the sure feeling that these films show everyday everyday life in Golzow. This lies young lasting earnings.

This is picture for picture, film for film, a biographical demolition about life in the GDR beyond the big cities and thus also beyond the high -flying plans. Here you become milker or poultry breeder in the LPG, perhaps also mechanics, the tractors. Only a few leave Golzow, graduate and study. But the young heart beats for those who work with their hands, he has fascinated them for many years and speaks to them.

Socialist pattern biographies – this idea was probably initially haunted in the minds of those who hoped for the “children of Golzow” witnesses in the ideological competition with the West. But then it was just the simple life with the same hopes and disappointments.

The »Children of Golzow« have long since gained the rank of valuable contemporary witnesses. This is where everyday history itself speaks through the grown -up former children, who finally affects the turn and end of the old life in the mid -thirties. Opportunities for new things? That too, but also a lot of melancholy, in some even an insurmountable frustration. From the beginning, the Golzow films manage to keep an eye on the individual and the group at the same time. Young shows us individuals beyond individualism, he tells life, avoids every ideological template, every resentment.

That makes the poetry of these films – too little about this. Admittedly, this is through and through brittle, as brittle as the GDR was, with individual moments of a holiday in which today, strange today. The title of one of the films bounded by Brecht’s “children’s anthem” sounds like a self -encouragement: “Grace does not spare spare.”

In the west, young “children of Golzow” was little, even after the turn, they had a difficult stand in criticism. Perhaps because they were so diametrically opposed to the prevailing clichés about life in the GDR. Neither heroes of socialist construction nor anti -socialist dissidents are neither heroes here, here one speaks about daily questions and that is extremely open and critical. Not different than today, just perhaps with a stronger awareness to interfere in your own public things?

When the “CVs”, nine individual portraits of the Golzow, also run on western television in 1983, the lack of interest in Eastern biographies is as great as it will remain later. The “Aachener Volkszeitung” complained on June 25, 1983: “Who may only have fallen into the thought of feeding us with GDR trickess for four and a half hours on two beautiful summer evenings?” In 1990 the east still chose the quick reunification with a west that was so low-estimated, it will always remain a secret.

Even in the nineties there was cunning tones that did not make a bow by rather left media. The “Friday” wrote on February 26, 1999: “In almost a senile way, bar of every idea, Junge, as the overfather of his heroes, moves around in their lives, even if they no longer want it.” Of course, the latter is not true, who no longer wanted to be there was not filmed.

Strange this widespread dislike, almost allergy against the Eastern Day documented here, which did not fit in any scheme and that is why it should be an inexhaustible treasure trove of the historiography alone. A lot of view and little abstraction – did you think that was unauthorized? In any case, the “taz” explained that young “berlining Bettina-Wegner-Tone” no longer stated. After all, Heinz Kesten writes on February 16. 1993 in the “Tagesspiegel”: “A historical document like this cannot be measured on the” market value “.” And Jan Ross noticed a “common uncertainty” by observer in the “FAZ” at the same time in the “FAZ”, recognizes a preference.

Fortunately, Winfried Junge with his wife Barbara to the side still has somewhat undeterrable renitation, which concerns too clear expectations of the results of his actions. The project of the “Children of Golzow”, as he saw it, has always been that of an experiment with an open outcome. That is why it remains an adventure, in the middle of which you can find yourself as a spectator, to go with this path of the children of Golzow until they can only remember being a child, once a child. What a cinematic treasure to be able to share this time with you.