DEFA

DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PROGRESS archive platform. The DEFA Foundation is a non-profit organisation that was established in order to preserve the films in the DEFA library as well as the film studios, and make them accessible to the public.

==History== thumb|251x251px|Founding congress of DEFA Studio, Berlin, May 1946 DEFA was founded in Spring 1946 in the Soviet Occupied Zone in eastern Germany; it was the first film production company in post-World War II Germany. While the other Allies, in their zones of occupation, viewed a rapid revival of a German film industry with suspicion, the Soviets valued the medium as a primary means of re-educating the German populace as it emerged from twelve years of Nazi rule.