Risk and Trust in State-Socialist Co-Production Practice. DEFA-Barrandov Collaborations of 1970s and 1980s
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Iluminace : časopis pro teorii, historii a estetiku filmu |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Mass media, audiovision |
| Keywords | co-productions; state socialist cinema; production history; Trust; Risk; Barrandov; DEFA |
| Description | The paper draws its attention to the roles risk and faith played in the development of co-production projects between the East German and Czechoslovak film studios, DEFA and Barrandov. While focused on the concepts of risk and trust in the 1970s and 1980s, the conclusions derived from such an analysis promise to be transferable to other international co-productions developed under State-Socialism and potentially even to those of other film industries. The proposed approach allows us not to restrict ourselves to a hierarchical relationship between administrative bodies and subordinate creative personnel though, but rather also to recognize a horizontal axis characterized by business partners and ideological allies. The paper focuses on the period of the 1970s and 1980s, when Barrandov remained attractive to DEFA as a service provider, and Barrandov's management demonstrated greater interest in collaborating with an ideologically “trustworthy” DEFA than during the previous, comparatively liberal, years. Produced by Barrandov's Children's Film Dramaturgical Group and DEFA's Roter Kreis and Berlin, fairytales and children’s films represented the most reliable, commercially successful East-German-Czechoslovak co-productions of the 1970s. They benefited from high levels of shared institutional trust. This trust was rooted in professionalization and the corporate culture of the Children’s Films dramaturgical group at Barrandov, as well as in the personal networks established with partnering DEFA groups. In the 1970s and 1980s, central dramaturgies saw DEFA and Barrandov as politically reliable partners. The credibility of their partnerships, coupled with a comparatively low risk of failure in this sphere of production, stimulated a relatively long and commercially impressive run of films. |
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