Westerns had long been popular with German cinema audiences, some of the most successful being early 1960s West German adaptations of novels by Karl May, a slippery late-19^th writer whose books were hugely admired by Hitler. East Germany’s state-run studio DEFA responded by producing The Sons of Great Bear (Die Söhne der großen Bärin) in 1966, the first of East Germany’s "Indianerfilme".

Heart of Stone (Das kalte Herz) was the first colour film produced by East Germany’s state film studio DEFA, a big-budget spectacular which attracted huge audiences upon its release in 1950.

DEFA was East Germany’s state film studio, operating between 1946 and 1992. Among its vast output were four lavish science fiction adventures, released between 1960 and 1976 and shown here in gleaming new transfers. Each one, to varying degrees, depicts the future through a rose-coloured lens, the world evolving into a utopian socialist paradise where disputes are settled peacefully.

The Ealing-like comedy heist caper Two to One is Natja Brunckhorst’s second feature as a director, after the 2002 short film La Mer, but most people will remember her for an extraordinary performance as a 13-year-old actor in Uli Edel’s 1981 cult film Christiane F. The following year, she had an equally memorable walk-on in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film Querelle.

Three Wishes for Cinderella (Tři oříšky pro Popelku) is one of Czech cinema’s best-loved pohadky, or "fairy tales".

Joerg and Anna Winger’s gripping drama of East Germany, a loose portrait set over the final decade of that country’s existence, has reached its culmination, and this first episode of Deutschland 89 landed us right in the unpredictable maelstrom of history.

If there’s one certainty about the Edinburgh Lyceum’s production of Mrs Puntila And Her Man Matti  – and there aren't many in this unsatisfying, overlong revival – it’s that Elaine C Smith makes a terrific drunkard.

Stasiland is a fascinating mental space. As a historical location, the former East Germany, or GDR, is the archetypal surveillance state, in which each citizen spies on each other citizen, even if they are intellectual dissidents. The Communist state acts like Big Brother, keeping tabs on everyone. This was memorably invoked by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck in his 2006 film debut, The Lives of Others.

During his quarter-century in charge of the Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig, the late Kurt Masur nobly held out a musical hand of friendship and collaboration from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Over his long career – 23 novels, memoirs, his painfully believable narratives adapted into extraordinary films (10 for the big screen) and for television – John le Carré has created a world that has gripped readers and viewers alike.