Co-presented with Telescope Film

KINO! Film Salon is a monthly online club to discuss films from Germany.

How it works: Each month, we choose a German film currently available to stream on U.S. platforms, watch it independently, and come together for a hosted conversation with other fans of German cinema.

In our Berlinale edition, we’ll discuss one of the most beloved East German films of all time, Heiner Carow’s The Legend of Paul and Paula (1973). Special guest Stefanie Eckert, director of the DEFA Foundation, will join us live from Berlin.

The film follows two neighbors leading parallel lives: Paul, educated and well-off, struggles with the boredom of the everyday and his unhappy marriage to an unfaithful wife; Paula, a grocery store cashier and single mother, contemplates a relationship of convenience with a tire salesman. When the two meet at a bar one night, a legendary romance begins, threatening their expectations for the future and their obligations to work and family. “The Legend of Paul and Paula perfectly demonstrates the thrilling creativity that flourished under DEFA,” writes KINO! Film Salon moderator Jim Kolmar. “The film’s freewheeling style and indelible performances paint a vibrant picture of the triumphs and tragedies of human emotion that still charms today.”

The Legend of Paul and Paula released in 1973 in East Berlin, narrowly avoiding censorship for its perceived anti-socialist themes. The film was re-screened at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, accompanying the presentation of the festival’s first Heiner Carow Prize for the promotion of German cinematic art.


Hosted by Jim Kolmar

Jim programs for SXSW and Trinidad & Tobago Film Festival and was a founding committee member of Festival Internacional de Cine Tulum (FICTU). He has participated in numerous international festival juries, panels, and committees.

KINO! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film, in partnership with the German Film Office.

Die Legende von Paul und Paula
Dir. Heiner Carow
East Germany, 1973
105 minutes
With Angelica Domröse, Winfried Glatzeder, Heidemarie Wenzel, Fred Delmare