Foreign Students in the GDR

Institute of Friendship
Heinz Fischer, GDR, 1964, 19 min., Production: DEFA Studio for Newsreels und Documentary Films.

The Herder Institute in Leipzig is presented in staged, semi-documentary scenes. Here foreigners who were delegated to the GDR begin by receiving a year of obligatory German lessons. What is emphasised is the comparatively internationalist atmosphere at the institute. 

Oyoyo
Chetna Vora (with Lars Barthel), GDR, 1980, 45 min., Production: HFF Babelsberg

Students from Chile, Guinea-Bissau, the Mongolian Soviet Republic, Cuba and Bulgaria explain – with unusual candidness – what brought them to the GDR and how they picture their future. The indian filmmaker Chetna Vora shot the film with her partner Lars Barthel in a student residence in Berlin-Karlshorst. She herself was studying film directing at the Film School in Babelsberg. Oyoyo was her diploma film.