Just dancing with ideology? The role of dramaturgs within the socialist mode of children’s film development

The dramaturgs of the Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA), the GDR’s state-owned film production company, played a particular role in socialist children’s film culture. Within the production process, they acted as important mediators as well as developed themes and defended them before the state film censors. In this article, I argue that screenwriting for children and the changing role of the dramaturg were remarkable inasmuch as the creative collaboration between authors, dramaturgs and directors became a collective process of navigating between politics, education, film and the young audience that can reasonably be described as ‘collective authorship’. First, I will show how DEFA children’s film production was an example of the ‘state-socialist mode of children’s film production’ and examine Szczepanik’s model in the light of the current question. Following this, I will examine the structural and practical development of children’s film production in view of both official images of the child and the images of children anticipated by the filmmakers. At the same time, I will discuss the role of dramaturgs as participants in a collective authorship process.