Spur der Steine (1966)

Director:

Frank Beyer

Writers:

Erik Neutsch (novel)
Karl-Georg Egel (writer) ...

Release Date:

15 June 1966 (East Germany)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

A film about living and working conditons in the GDR of the 60's Includes a little lovestory of course.

Plot Keywords:

Gdr | Work | Building Construction | Drinking | Social Discontent

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Manfred Krug	...	Hannes Balla
Krystyna Stypulkowska	...	Kati Klee
Jutta Hoffmann	...	German Voice of Kati Klee
Eberhard Esche	...	Werner Horrath
Johannes Wieke	...	Hermann Jansen
Walter Richter-Reinick	...	Richard Trutmann
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

Also Known As:

The Trace of Stones (International: English title)
Traces of Stones (USA) (literal English title)

Runtime:

East Germany:139 min | Germany:129 min

Country:

East Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White (Orwocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

East Germany:(Banned) | UK:15 | West Germany:6 (f)

Filming Locations:

Coswig, Saxony, Germany

Company:

Deutsche Film (DEFA)

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.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Die Nacht der Regisseure (1995)

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.