Meine Erlebnisse

Vietnamese students, as well as those from fellow socialist countries, were invited to study at East Germany’s universities, including the former Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst in Potsdam-Babelsberg. In MEINE ERLEBNISSE/MY EXPERIENCES one of these students looks back on all that he has seen and learned shortly before his return to Hanoi: genuinely grateful, ideologically naïve, light-hearted in his observations on cultural differences and congenial in his portrayal of intercultural friendship. In this sense the film highlights an aspect that is often neglected when criticising the ideology and everyday reality of socialism: that young people were educated in order carry a multiplier effect back to their homelands.

Educational endowment in place of brain drain and peaceful utopia instead of war: a reflection on the ideals held in the immediate post-war years. BB