Andrew Thorndike
1909 - 1979Wilhelm Pieck - Das Leben unseres Präsidenten
Andrew Thorndike
Harry Hindemith, Wilhelm Pieck
Basing his work on documentary material, Andrew Thorndike tells the life story of Wilhelm Pieck: from young worker to fighter for the German working class, and from enemy of national-socialism to the first president of the German Democratic Republic.
Wilhelm Pieck - Das Leben unseres Präsidenten
Unternehmen Teutonenschwert
Annelie Thorndike, Andrew Thorndike
Спорная документальная лента студии DEFA пытается доказать на основе документов и архивных материалов, что тогдашний командующий сухопутными войсками НАТО из Западной Германии генерал Ганс Шпейдель был ответственен за убийство югославского короля Александра I и министра иностранных дел Франции Барту в 1934 году. Она описывает его роль в преддверии Второй мировой войны в качестве начальника штаба.
Unternehmen Teutonenschwert
Urlaub auf Sylt
Annelie Thorndike, Andrew Thorndike
Irmgard Düren, Raimund Schelcher
Vacation in Sylt is a black and white compilation film about Heinz Reinefarth, a Nazi Party member, high SS police leader of Warthe, and later mayor (1951-1964) of Westerland/Sylt.
Vacation in Sylt
Der Weg nach oben
Andrew Thorndike, Karl Gass
Harry Hindemith
The economic and cultural improvements of the Soviet Occupied Sector are documented with scenes from the years 1945 to 1950. The film deals with the land reform, the founding of the Socialist Unity Party, the expropriation of war criminals, the founding of the GDR and the first Five Year Plan in July 1950. Special attention is dedicated to the setup of the steel industry. All this is shown in contrast to the new Federal Republic of Germany, where unemployment, slums and the West Berlin airlift prevail. The Cold War of those years is reflected in the film as well as a part of the development of post-war Germany.
Der Weg nach oben
Du bist Min – Ein deutsches Tagebuch
Hans Joachim Manfred, Annelie Thorndike
The core of this most personal of the Thorndikes’ projects are Annelie’s diary entries: Her story is to be the starting point for a kind of all-German ‘Heimatfilm’ that praises the utopian power of the GDR and sharply condemns Federal German wrongs, but finds transcendent beauty on both sides of the wall. Over the course of production, however, the visionary dimension of the project was progressively trimmed down, though it’s still tangible everywhere in the compromised final version: The intensity of its pathos is both oppressive and enchanting; some historical simplifications and ideological twists and bends may be hair-raising, but they still achieve the desired effect.
Diary of a German Woman
