The New German Cinema

A scene from the film The Tin Drum by Volker Sclondorff, based on the novel by Gunter Grass

During the last 19 years, the film club has organised many film shows, film appreciation courses, seminars and workshops focusing on different aspects of cinema and film art: creative, aesthetic, structural and technical. That cinema is important in social, historical, political, economic and cultural spheres of a country need not be emphasised. Zahir Raihan Film Society has screened more than 2,500 films so far -- most of them were shown for the first time in Bangladesh.

This year, the film club's anniversary focus is the New German Cinema. It is presenting 15 films made by New German filmmakers jointly with the Goethe-Institut Dhaka at its auditorium on May 16-20, 2005. The focus of the festival is on five filmmakers:

Edgar Reitz, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and Volker Schlondorff.

The film movement in the then West Germany from 1962 to 1984-5 is considered one of the best film movements in the history of world cinema alongside Italian Neo-Realism and French 'Nouvelle Vague' (New Wave). As with other cases, this movement was a reaction to the existing practice of filmmaking in Germany which was devoid of socio-cultural and political realism of the country. On February 28, 1962, the now-famous 'Oberhausen Manifesto', was published under the aegis of the short film festival at Oberhausen. The manifesto, signed by 26 young German filmmakers including Alexander Kluge and Edgar Reitz, declared "The old cinema is dead. We believe in the new." And thus began the new chapter in the history of German cinema. The manifesto sought to accomplish three ends: to offer a critique of the conventional genre cinema, to lay out the future of German cinema, and to present a list of demands to the government. The aftermath: critical acclaim and international recognition of the films and filmmakers of the movement.

The subsequent cinema during 1962-1985 of West Germany has passed through several stages and manifestations: Young German Film (1962-1970), New German Film (feature-length films of 1971-1985) and New German Cinema (internationally recognised feature films made and released during 1966-1985). The stalwarts of this New German Cinema are Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz, Volker Schlondorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, Werner Schroeter, Reinhard Hauff, Wim Wenders, and Margarethe von Trotta, among others.