Synopsis:
Sun Seekers was banned in 1958 at the urging of the USSR, since it treats Soviet/German relations in mining uranium in the GDR's Wismut region, to support the nuclear arms race. Encouraged by the "thaw" promised by the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Konrad Wolf's film presents a highly dramatic and differentiated view of the Nazi past, Stalinist political practices, and the energetic chaos of the early postwar period. The film's style combines Wolf's Russian sensibilities with echoes of Italian neo-realism as well as Pabst's Kameradschaft (1931). Releasing this film was one of Wolf's first priorities when a new regime took power in the GDR in 1972, and in 1989 the film was revived along with the banned films of 1965 as part of DEFA's best - if thwarted - tradition.

Press Comments:
"Sunseekers - a symbolic, key-note title of one of Konrad Wolf's early films. Symbolic in two respects. First, as regards the thousands of people streaming to the uranium mines in the Erz Mountains to make a new start. They were seeking sun for their own lives and the 'solar energy from the power of the atom'...the plot is history, a gripping copy of a tough new start almost impossible to accomplish. Nothing is white-washed, which is precisely why this film is valuable as an artistic reproduction of a historical process." -- Gerd Focke in the Halle Freiheit of 07.09.1972

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