Spur der Steine (1966)

A film about living and working conditions in the GDR of the 60's. Includes a little love story of course.

Director:

Frank Beyer

Writers:

Erik Neutsch (novel), Karl-Georg Egel (screenplay)

Stars:

Manfred Krug, Krystyna Stypulkowska, Jutta Hoffmann

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Manfred Krug	...	Hannes Balla
Krystyna Stypulkowska	...	Kati Klee
Jutta Hoffmann	...	Kati Klee (voice)
Eberhard Esche	...	Werner Horrath
Johannes Wieke	...	Hermann Jansen
Walter Richter-Reinick	...	Richard Trautmann
Hans-Peter Minetti	...	Heinz Bleibtreu
Walter Jupé	...	Hesselbarth
Ingeborg Schumacher	...	Marianne Horrath
Gertrud Brendler	...	Frau Schickedanz
Helga Göring	...	Elli
Erich Mirek	...	Oswald Ziemer
Fred Ludwig	...	Wolbig
Helmut Schreiber	...	Elsbers
Erik Veldre	...	Dieter Jochmann

Storyline

Hannes Balla is the foreman of a group of building construction workers at the large construction site "Schkona" in the GDR. They spend most of their time working hard and drinking harder - to some they are fun, to some they are a public nuisance. Things get more complicated when the good-looking Kati Klee is employed as a young technician, and the ambitious new Party Secretary, Werner Horrath, aims to boost work efficiency and downsize Balla's ego. Kati slowly warms up to Werner, but is also attracted to Balla's nonconformity. A contemporary movie about work, love, and everything in between.

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Plot Keywords:

bellwether | work | building construction | building site | working class | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Details

Country:

East Germany

Language:

German

Release Date:

1 July 1966 (East Germany)

Also Known As:

Trace of Stones

Filming Locations:

Coswig, Saxony, Germany

Company Credits

Production Co:

Deutsche Film (DEFA)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

139 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White (Orwo-Kinofilm)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Frank Beyer was planning on including songs by the famous East-German songwriter Wolf Biermann in the opening scene and the trailer (one of which had been written especially for the movie). However, Biermann fell from grace with the GDR's government due to his political stance, and a collaboration became out of the question.

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Connections

Featured in Century of Cinema: Die Nacht der Regisseure (1995)

User Reviews

Frank Beyer's Brevity in Showing Truth

Trace of Stones is a film about Socialism in GDR or East Germany which is compared to a construction site in Schkona in the early 60's. It tackled sensitive and serious issues at that time without losing its touch of creativeness both technically (on how shots were developed) and script wise. The film was made through series of flashbacks yet it wasn't boring at all, actually it made you stick on the film by craving more information that will lead to the present.

The clash of personalities of the three main characters in the film, namely Balla, Kati and Horrath is very entertaining to watch. They played their roles efficiently thus creating a world full of emotions, from rivalry, love, anger, humor, etc. The theme of the film may be serious yet it won't fail to make the audience laugh at some scenes. The brevity invested by the filmmaker in doing this film is worth it, even though it was banned for two decades due to the issues it tackled about the GDR Party and Socialism, the re-opening of the film in 1990 made it an art-house hit in Germany and most of importantly its message was clearly conveyed to the audience especially to the German people.