East/West of the Dial - Cold War Era Radio Short Films
Merging cinematic experience and radio show, East/West of the Dial revisits the airwaves on both sides of the Iron Curtain as a Cold War conflict zone.
Short film program:
Radio War
GB/BRD 1981 | 2' | music video
English OV
Clip by Berlin-based British expat new wave/post punk band Die Unbekannten, featuring DJ, musician, producer Mark Reeder, author and narrator of the documentary B-Movie, a collage-like remembrance of the West Berlin underground music up to the Fall of the Wall.
This Is Radio Free Europe
USA 1964 | 28' | documentary
English OV
This film, narrated by Polish broadcaster Andrzej Kzeczenowicz, gives an overview of Radio Free Europes news-gathering and audience research, its production center in Munich, and its transmission operations in Germany and Portugal. Produced by the Free Europe (RFE) Committee, the parent organization of Radio Free Europe.
Kundschafter in München
(Agent in Munich)
DDR 1977 | 11' | documentary
directed by Dieter Raue
German OV
Anti-Radio Free Europe film produced by DEFA, the state film studio of the GDR, for screening as a short subject before features and in youth clubs.
Nek se čuje i naš glas
(Let Our Voices Be Heard Too)
YU 1970 |16' | mockumentary
directed by Krsto Papić
Serbo-Croatian OV with English subtitles
In the picturesque Croatian province, resourceful villagers run pirate radio stations in their spare time. They sing and make fun of each other, recite self-written songs, report on Tito's trips to the moon and teach German for gastarbeiter. Papić's documentary satire was one of the funniest films of the Yugoslavian "black wave", for which humor and self-irony were just as important as the attack on the political powers.
Atmospherics: Listen to the Radio
GB 1983 | 4' | music video
directed by Nicolas Roeg
English OV
Courtesy of Tom Robinson
Late Cold War music video curio: performed by Tom Robinson (writer-singer of late 70s queer rights anthem “Glad to Be Gay”), song written by Robinson and Peter Gabriel, clip directed by seminal filmmaker Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now, Man Who Fell To Earth), the video presents the airwaves as both a space of dread and hope for overcoming the post World War II division of Europe.
Artists
Die Unbekannten (The Unknown) were formed in June 1981 by 2 ex-pat Brits living in Berlin, Mark Reeder and Alistair Gray, for the legendary Konzert Zur Einheit Der Nation (concert for the unity of Germany) held in the SO36 club in Kreuzberg on 17th June 1981. They actually had no name when they appeared at SO36 and so a local journalist dubbed them "the two unknown Englishmen" in a local magazine review, after which the name Die Unbekannten stuck. The band performed semi-legal gigs in Czechoslovakia and Hungary before morphing into the poppier outfit Shark Vegas around 1984/85.
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Documentary short film director who worked for the GDR state film studio DEFA. His oeuvre focused on sports and political topics. Also directed several Disco-Films, unique portraits of popular music acts which fused documentary, live performance and even animation. Raue-helmed Disco-Films include shorts about top GDR hard rock band Puhdys and internationally popular Hungarian prog rockers Omega.
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Croatian screenwriter and film director whose career spanned over five decades. He is generally considered among the best directors of former Yugoslavia, and counted among the Yugoslav Black Wave. Papić himself was connected to the Croatian Spring political movement during the early 1970s. His feature film Život sa stricem (My Uncle's Legacy) was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1989.
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Tom Robinson first became known in the late 1970s as a musician and LGBT activist with the Tom Robinson Band (TRB) who were early supporters of Rock Against Racism and Amnesty International. In 1977 their Top 5 debut release 2-4-6-8 Motorway became one of the landmark singles of the UK punk era. Other hits included the anthem Glad To Be Gay. After releasing an album with his second band Sector 27, Robinson started a successful solo career in 1982 and works to this day a a recording artist and radio presenter.
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British film director whose work includes Don't Look Now, Walkabout, The Man Who Fell To Earth and Insignificance.
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