Born in '45 (Jahrgang 45)

Streaming video - 2014

Alfred and Lisa decide to divorce after only a couple of months of marriage. Alfred takes a few days off to clear his head, riding through Berlin and meeting strangers; although he ultimately returns to Lisa, but the ending remains open. In East Germany's closest counterpart to early Godard, Jürgen Böttcher grasps the life of 20-year-olds in Prenzlauer Berg with social and regional exactness and translates it into a universal language. Born in '45 was caught in a wave of politically-motivated censorship in the summer of 1966. The film was described by an official as "indifferent and insignificant;" Böttcher, he wrote, chose settings that were "gloomy, unfriendly, dirty and neglected. Characters and surroundings w...ere created to reflect more of a capitalist than a socialist view of life." After Born in '45 was banned, Böttcher never made another feature film. Only when the film was shown in cinemas in the spring of 1990 were the true beauties of the film discovered: its rhythm, its lacunae, and its dispositions. more