Verwandlungen –
Ein Experimentalfilm-Triptychon

Jürgen Böttcher, a director on permanent staff in the DEFA Studio for Documentary Films, was able to pursue his artistic ambitions only within narrowly confined margins. His debut – Drei von vielen – was immediately banned; Barfuß und ohne Hut (1965) was not shown; and his sole feature film, Jahrgang 45, was shelved. Böttcher counterbalanced these restrictions with a parallel existence and under a pseudonym, as the painter Strawalde. In Verwandlungen (1981) he found a symbiosis of his double talent and built a bridge to the self-sufficient artists of the independent ciné film scene. He associatively painted over art postcards of works by painters whom he admired, such as Paulus Pieterszoon Potter, Giorgione and Emanuel de Witte, setting in motion cheeky and yet at the same time respectful play with the motifs. The soundtrack of everyday noises accentuates and counteracts the images as they emerge. With this film, Böttcher became a pioneer in processing the imagery of painters who were pushed into an artistic underground, such as Lutz Dammbeck, Helge Leiberg, Cornelia Schleime and Christine Schlegel, although his film remains an isolated case of experimentation in the DEFA Studio.