Between ‘(N)Ostalgie’ and Ideology – New Perspectives on DEFA Children’s Film

This review article discusses the volume Von Pionieren und Piraten. Der DEFA-Kinderfilm in seinen kulturhistorischen, filmästhetischen und ideologischen Dimen­sionen [Of Pioneers and Pirates: DEFA Children’s Film in Its Cultural-Historical, Film-Aesthetic, and Ideological Dimensions], edited by Steffi Ebert and Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (2021). The author of the paper situates the volume in the context of research on children’s and young adult media in the state-controlled environment of the German Democratic Republic and highlights the political, ideological, social, and cultural mechanisms of the production and reception of children’s films in the GDR. She raises questions about the relationship between so­ciety, cultural politics, and children’s film and calls for a broad interdisciplinary ap­proach to the complex phenomenon of DEFA [Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft] children’s film that includes historical, political, socio-cultural, theoretical, as well as film-didactic aspects. From this perspective, DEFA children’s film not only be­comes an important document of everyday life in the GDR, but also inscribes itself in the current discourses on remembering and forgetting.