• Back to Results 

• Team  Cast  Synopsis  Further Information

Wittstock Girls
Original title: Mädchen in Wittstock
documentary - GDR, 1975, b/w, 20 min.
short film, chronicle, biography, biopic, worker's film, series

Director Volker Koepp
Producer DEFA Studios for Documentary Films
Script Volker Koepp, Richard Ritterbusch, Wolfgang Geier Camera Christian Lehmann, Michael Zausch Music Konrad Körner

Voices
Dieter Mittag

Synopsis
The first encounter with the small town Wittstock: a mainly agricultural region in the North of Brandenburg is experiencing a change. On a meadow outside the town, an ambitious project is taking shape, the knitting factory Ernst Lück is being build. The gigantic size of the factory changes the landscape and the lives of the people significantly. Over one thousand young girls live and work here, literally producing “Young fashion”. The girls of the Youth Shift do not mince matters. They talk about initial problems, low productivity and high fluctuation rates. The young shift leader talks about her leadership problems, the lack of leisure activities are discussed as well. Many girls would like to have a boyfriend, but young men are in short supply in Wittstock.

During almost a quarter of a century, from 1974 to 1997, Volker Koepp filmed in Wittstock, a small town north of Berlin. All this time, the director accompanied three women – Renate, Edith and Stupsi - from a large textile company: apart from their individual histories, the audience is presented historical processes – from the industrialization of a former rural area, the fall of the Wall and the problems after the reunification.

Festivals and Awards
MoMA DEFA-retrospective "Rebels With a Cause“ 2005

Further Information (partially only in german)
This Film was presented in the follwing series:

• Info PDF DDR – Fiktion und Wirklichkeit im Film
Film-Gesprächs-Woche über Frauenbilder im DEFA-Film


• Info PDF MoMA DEFA-retrospective “Rebels with a Cause“


• Info PDF MoMA Filmreihe “Rebels with a cause“
Spiel- und Dokumentarfilme, ausgewählt vom Museum of Modern Art in New York