ABSTRACT
The biography explains Jürgen Böttcher's personal history, notably that his brother was killed in WWII and the family nearly starved to death, and he went to study painting in the bombed-out Dresden, where the new regime did not like his painting style and denied him the ability to make a living as a painter. He then went to film school, and his narrative thesis film was also censored. He then joins the documentary division of the state in the GDR, DEFA. John Grierson, considered a “grandfather” of documentary film, compliments his first work under DEFA at the 1962 Leipzig film festival. Böttcher made over 40 documentaries on 35 mm film before the fall of the wall, several of which were censored. At the 1991 Berlin Film Festival, Böttcher wins the International Film Critics Award for his film Die Mauer, then effectively retires from filmmaking and begins working as a painter under the pseudonym STRAWALDE.
