Banned East German Comedy Premieres 40 Years Late
"Hands Up Or I'll Shoot." It's an unlikely title for a funny film made in the former East Germany and considered politically incorrect enough to be banned. Which is why this movie is only just making its big screen debut in Dresden on Wednesday night.
It's the peculiar story of a policeman named Holms living in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR). In a state controlled by the secret police and riddled with informers and spies, the poor man finds himself with no crime to police. So in order to banish the boredom, Holms enlists some petty criminals to steal a monument from the town center -- just so that he can give chase. Naturally, in the process our hero finds true love.
But one wouldn't want to give away too much of the 1965 movie, "Hands Up Or I'll Shoot" (In German, "Hände hoch oder ich schieße"). Because this piece of cinematic history, produced by the famous DEFA studios -- the GDR's film production monopoly -- over 40 years ago, is about to be screened to a wider audience for the first time. In the process it becomes the last piece of GDR cinema to be screened post-reunification. It sounds harmless enough but at the time of its production the film was deemed too politically provocative and was never seen outside of a censor's office...
Read entire article at Spiegel Online
It's the peculiar story of a policeman named Holms living in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR). In a state controlled by the secret police and riddled with informers and spies, the poor man finds himself with no crime to police. So in order to banish the boredom, Holms enlists some petty criminals to steal a monument from the town center -- just so that he can give chase. Naturally, in the process our hero finds true love.
But one wouldn't want to give away too much of the 1965 movie, "Hands Up Or I'll Shoot" (In German, "Hände hoch oder ich schieße"). Because this piece of cinematic history, produced by the famous DEFA studios -- the GDR's film production monopoly -- over 40 years ago, is about to be screened to a wider audience for the first time. In the process it becomes the last piece of GDR cinema to be screened post-reunification. It sounds harmless enough but at the time of its production the film was deemed too politically provocative and was never seen outside of a censor's office...