Surveillance.Secret Police Film Festival 2/6

SURVEILLANCE. SECRET POLICE FILM FESTIVAL 2/6

The Open Society Archives presents a unique selection of educational, operative (surveillance) and documentary films from 5 Eastern European Communist countries: Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The so-called 'national security' films in the program were selected by the Curators from the collections of the Secret Police Archives, and most of them are screened in Hungary for the first time.

 

 

October 28, 2015. 6.30 PM
Secret House Search/ Titkos házkutatás (instructional film)

Communist state security agents enter a home of a couple while they are out at work and at a spa. The goal is to find any prohibited and hidden objects, like US Dollars. The evidence will be used to blackmail the citizens and turn them into secret agents.
Hungary, Hungarian with English subtitles, 1962, 18 min

Under Surveillance by the Securitate 1970-1980 (documentary film)
The movie portrays the extreme case of surveillance under Romanian communism; in between 70s and 80s Securitate was a key-institution in Romania: it not only observed its citizens, but also brutally repressed and domesticated them. The persons who viewed their files engage in storytelling their dramatic encounters with the secret police and, at the same time, reflect on the logic of the documents who insidiously mapped their lives. It's a movie of unappeased trauma, hinting at other continuities in nowadays Romanian political life.
Nicolae Mărgineanu, Romania, Romanian with English voiceover, 2009, 56 min

Introduction and follow up analyses by Ioana Macrea-Toma (Historian, OSA) and András Mink (Historian OSA)

Next screenings:

November 4, 2015. 6.30 PM
A Chronicle of Operations / Dwanaście filmów operacyjnych (operative film)
Excerpts from operative films from different events, supplemented by comments on the events and the techniques used during the surveillance operations.
Poland, in Polish with English subtitles, 1968-1976, 24 min

Communist Technologies of Surveillance: PESEL population registry / Budowa Rządowego Centrum Informatycznego PESEL (newsreel)
PESEL is the Polish identification number still in use as of 2015, however its genesis in the surveillance program undertaken by the Interior Ministry dates back to the 1970s.
Poland, in Polish with English subtitles, 1974, 8 min

Official Visit / Wizitacja (newsreel)
General Wojciech Jaruzelski pays a visit to the PESEL Center in Warsaw.
In Polish with English subtitles, cca. 1975, 6 min, silent
Source of the 3 films: The Institute of National Remembrance, Warsaw

Hear My Cry / Usłyszcie mój krzyk (documentary film)
In front of thousands of people, Ryszard Siwiec poured gasoline over himself and lit himself on fire during a festival at a Stadium in Warsaw on September 8, 1968. Film director, Maciej Drygas reveals the real story behind the sacrifice using secret police films and records, and via interviews with relatives and eyewitnesses.
Maciej Drygas, Poland, Polish with English subtitles, 1991, 46 min


November 18, 2015. 6.30 PM
A Diplomat (propaganda film)
A cold war story about Colonel Roberto Cantilio, Italian Military Attaché who had been spying ever since he arrived to Hungary in 1959… Hungary, Hungarian with English subtitles, 1962, 8 min

Under the Mask of a Private Citizen / Pod maskou soukromnika (training film)
Combining real and fictional elements, the Communist propaganda film discredits the 1968 Czech emigration and charges them with spying and smuggling in to Czechoslovakia dangerous literature by "West-German students".
Czechoslovakia, 1978, 30 min, Czech and German language with English subtitles, dir. Tibor Podhorec
Source: Ustav Pamati Naroda in Bratislava (UPN), the National Memory Institute, Slovakia

Their Duty Is To Spy / Feladatuk a kémkedés (training film)
A short piece describing methods of counterintelligence propaganda.
Czechoslovakia, 1963, 12 min, in Hungarian with English subtitles, dir. Jaroslav Šikl
Source: Ustav Pamati Naroda in Bratislava (UPN), the National Memory Institute

Introduction and follow up Q&A with Peter Jašek (Historian, The Nation's Memory Institute – Bratislava) and András Mink (Historian, Open Society Archives)


November 25, 2015. 6.30 PM
Theme: What were they seeing while watching? Operative films from the Stasi Mediathek
West-Berlin Spy Road Movie / Kamerafahrt mit einem PKW durch West-Berlin (operative film)
This film is exclusively composed of images of important sights and streets in West-Berlin, filmed by Stasi employees’ Super8 mm camera. The film could have been used to introduce the sights and main streets to DDR agents before their deployment in West Berlin.
DDR, German with English subtitles, 1970, 89 min, 12 min excerpt

Border Zone at Berlin-Kreuzberg /Filmaufnahmen der Grenzanlagen in Berlin-Kreuzberg (operative film)
This film shows East German and West-German civilians moving within the close vicinity of the border zone fence and checkpoint.
DDR, German with English subtitles, 1962, 11 min, silent (music added by OSA)

Surveillance of a West-German Citizen in Flemmingen in Naumburg / Beobachtung eines BRD-Bürgers in Flemmingen bei Naumburg (operative film)
As the microphones of the VHS cameras used for surveillance were not switched off, the comments and conversations between the two Stasi agents were accidentally recorded thus leaving a unique source of information about what the observers were thinking about their subjects.
DDR, German with English subtitles, 1989, 13 min

December 2, 2015. Wednesday 6.30 PM
GermanUnity@Balaton – Honeyland / NémetEgység @ Balatonnál – Mézföld (documentary film)
Home movies, interviews, photographs, and documents from East German and Hungarian secret police archives reconstruct the atmosphere of summers at Balaton in the late socialist period.
Péter Forgács, Hungary, 2011, Hungarian & German with English subtitles, 78 min

Introduction and follow up Q&A with Film Director Péter Forgács

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SECRET POLICE FILM FESTIVAL
16 FILMS / 5 COMMUNIST COUNTRIES / 6 WEEKS
October 21 – December 2, 2015, 6 Wednesdays
Free entrance. Seats available on a first come first served basis
https://www.facebook.com/OSAarchivum
info: +36.1.2356166
Free entrance Seats available from 6.20 PM on a first come first served basis

Work of the OSA Archivum.

Curated by András Mink, Ioana Macrea-Toma, Piotr Wcislik and Zsuzsanna Zádori

OSA Archivum / Galeria Centralis - 1051 Budapest, Arany János u. 32.