Comrade Couture - Ein Traum in Erdbeerfolie
Marco Wilms
- Germany
- 2009
- Runtime: 82 minutes
Arizona Premiere
In the decade before the Berlin Wall fell, Stasi secret police dominated East Berlin. Undaunted, the libertine fashion underground celebrated youth and life amid pervasive oppression.
Using available materials, such as black plastic sheets and striped shower curtains, the designers, models and their helpers cleverly parodied the de-humanizing reality that surrounded them.
Twenty years later, a nostalgic admirer decides to re-create the movement’s infectious joie de vivre. Old footage and photos complement interviews with members of the subversive East Berlin fashion groups, Chic, Charmant and Dauerhaft (Chic, Charming and Durable) and Allerleirauh (All-Kinds-of-Fur). Key group members -- and an ex-Stasi officer -- describe what happened and the Stasi response.
Filmmaker Marco Wilms was born in 1966 in East Berlin. He became a state-sanctioned model during the 1980’s and later studied at Germany’s Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee and HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg and at the Film Department of Thannasat University Acting Workshop in Thailand. Among his prior documentary credits are Tailor-Made Dreams and Berlin Vortex.
Credits
Producer: HeldenfilmWriter: Marco Wilms
Cinematographer: Lars Barthel, Jörg Jeshel
Editor: C. Fibikar
Sound Design: Thorsten Minning
Music Score: Moritz Denis & Eike Hosenfeld
Cast Members: Frank Schäfer, Sabine von Oettingen, Robert Paris
Additional Credits: With Frank Schäfer, Sabine von Oettingen, Robert Paris, Angelika Kroker, Klaus Ehrlich, Helga Paris, Jürgen Breski, Frieda von Wild, Jürgen Hohmuth, Domenique Hollenstein, Esther Friedemann Marlen Burghardt, Amon Wilms, Ingrid Wilms, and many more.