Divided Heaven

Source: EFA_Stiftung Werner_Bergmann

Divided Heaven

Coproduction Office has acquired international rights to the catalogue of acclaimed post-War East German filmmaker Konrad Wolf. The Paris and Berlin-based company is working with DEFA Foundation and DEFA Distribution, part of a German government-run group of film studios founded in the late 1940s to restore Wolf’s 14 features to commemorate the centenary of his birth in 2025.

Wolf’s anti-fascist film Sterne (Stars) won him a Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 1959 and his 1964 feature Divided Heaven captured the complexities of life in divided Germany. His 1971 drama Goya Of The Hard Way to Enlightenment,was a biopic of the Spanish painter.

His final film and box office hit Solo Sunny following a young singer in East Berlin, screend at the Berlinale in 1980 where it earned its star Renate Krössner the best actress prize. 

Wolf’s films depicting life in Germany were often opposed by the East German authorities – his 1958 film Sun Seekers was banned for more than a decade and Divided Heaven was repeatedly removed from circulation.

After his family was forced to flee Nazi persecution in Germany in the 1930s and emigrate to Moscow, Wolf returned to Germany to fight with the Red Army during the Second World War the inspiration for his 1968 film I Was Nineteen.

Coproduction Office’s founder Philippe Bober called Wolf “a free-minded representative of a controlled post-war Eastern society” and said that the restoration of the filmmaker’s collection “will contribute to preserving the spirit and history of groundbreaking cinema.” 

Bober, who launched Coproduction Office in 1987 in what was then West Berlin added; “It is a particular honour to represent his exemplary oeuvre from the divided city and to mark Wolf’s centenary next year by introducing his newly-restored work to audiences worldwide.”

The move is part of what Bober calls “our long-lasting commitment to cinematic heritage.” Coproduction Office recently joined forces with Cinecittà Luce and Cineteca di Bologna to restore Roberto Rossellini’s features and is in the process of restoring its own productions, including early films from Michelangelo Frammartino, Lou Ye, Jessica Hausner and Carlos Reygadas. The company’s most recent restoration Carlos Reygadas’ Battle in Heaven will screen in the upcoming 2024 Berlinale Classics section at the festival.