SPECIAL FEATURE

Eastern Blockbuster —
Northampton Resident Keith Stone Brings East German Films
To Western Filmgoers (part 2 of a 3-part series)

by Vinca Liane Jarrett

Keith Stone at check point Charlie in East Germany. He now lives in Northampton, MA.

In the last decade the United States has watched the cold war end, tumbling walls and cultural dividers, and a new era of free market trade begin with Russia and other Eastern European strongholds of the Iron Sickle Nation such as Romania and East Germany. Today, these countries, once cut off from free artistic expression or access to distribution outside their own nation, are the epicenter of feature film and television production and distribution. This article continues to explore in Imagine News' Three Part Series, working in the film industry in the Eastern Block. Next month will conclude this series, focusing on set designer Jacqui Masson, who originally hails from Conway, Massachuetts and worked on the feature film THE ELITE, shot on location over four months in Romania in 2000.

Keith Stone, currently the head of Special Projects at ICESTORM International, Inc., located in Northampton, MA (which deals with the international film market) and affiliated with ICESTORM Entertainment GmbH (which concentrates on the German-speaking market), located in Berlin, Germany, came to Massachusetts from L.A. in the 1980s to study at Harvard University, ultimately pursuing a career as a freelance journalist and cub reporter. Keith settled on Cape Cod, getting into the film industry by happenstance in 1998 while traveling in Germany where he met Gerhard Sieber, owner & President of ICESTORM.

Keith signed on to work as an editor and translator for ICESTORM in 1999, moving himself to Northampton, Massachusetts, selected because of its connection to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which has the largest library dedicated to East German films and a particular German professor, Barton Big, who oversees the largest DEFA (Deutsche Filmaktiengesellschaft) library in the U.S. contained at the university. Professor Big served initially as liaison to help get ICESTORM's U.S. branch up and running. Keith hopes to play a part in helping young American filmmakers obtain international distribution and for features that will ultimately end up going straight to video, allowing filmmakers some return on their investment. He specifies that content needs to be of interest to a larger audience both in Europe and in the U.S.

Keith Stone with Gebhardt
working in East Germany.

ICESTORM is one of the largest independently owned home entertainment distributors, holding the world rights in all home entertainment media (VHS and DVD) for the entire production of the DEFA Film Studios of former East Germany, including additional documentaries and feature films produced since German reunification, including various productions of German public television. DEFA was made up of state-run studios in East Germany, and was headquartered in the legendary UFA Studios of the "film city" of Babelsberg near Berlin, famous for the work of such artists as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich and producing films in all genres. The DEFA library currently contains nearly 750 features, 750 animated films and 2250 documentaries and shorts spanning from 1946 to the 1990s and representing Europe's largest cohesive national cinema collection.

Most recently DEFA sold off rights for the remake of Frank Beyer's (TRACES OF STONE, NAKED AMONG WOLVES) 1974 banned film classic JAKOB DER LUGNER (Jakob the Liar), released on September 24, 1999 by Columbia Pictures and starring Robin Williams, Alan Arkin and Armin Mueller-Stahl (SHINE, AVALON, THE MUSIC BOX). ICESTORM has also produced the 1999 film documentary on the Fall of the Berlin Wall, signaling the tenth anniversary of the end of the cold war, as well as the more recently seen (on German public television) documentary of the Auschwitz trials which took place in the 1960s. Additionally, ICESTORM is distributing several new films, including HOT SUMMER, and representing those films at various film festivals including this past summer's Provincetown festival, where Keith oversaw the showing of COMING OUT, an East German flic. Both films have had German distribution, but are still seeking U.S. distribution, and are currently available on video in the U.S. and Canada. ICESTORM is now also breaking into Latin American markets with its original fairytale series, which includes 40 episodes already acclaimed in Germany. ICESTORM works closely with DVD distributor company, AVIVA, and is also currently producing live DVD concerts in Europe for noted stars such as Santana, Chaka Kahn and Cher. Keith continues to travel back and forth to Berlin for meetings, and to travel to film festivals worldwide to promote ICESTORM's significant library of films, old and new, but in quieter moments can be found in Northampton sipping coffee at one of the local cafes as he plans out his next film adventure.

Vinca Jarrett is an attorney of counsel to the firm of Shames and Litwin, a full service law firm with foremost experience in the field of entertainment, including film, music, television and media. She is also the owner and principal of SKRIPTEASE Script Consulting, specializing in drafting, editing and consulting on feature and television projects. contact Vinca at JarrettBiz@aol.com