The girl on the board

Movie
Original title	The girl on the board
Country of production	GDR
original language	German
Publishing year	1967
length	96 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Kurt Maetzig
script	Ralph Knebel Christel Gräf (Dramaturgy)
production	DEFA , KAG "Red Circle"
music	Gerhard Rosenfeld
camera	Erich Gusko
cut	Brigitte Krex
occupation
Christiane Lanzke : Katharina Klaus Piontek : Peter Hannjo Hasse : Karl Klemm Monika Woytowicz : Claudia Irene Korb : Katharina's mother Norbert Christian : German teacher Helga Göring : chemistry teacher Günter Grabbert : Trainer Korn Irma Münch : Eboli Harald Moszdorf : Customs officer Willi Neuenhahn : lifeguard Agnes Kraus : Dodo Fritz Marquardt : Theo Werner Wieland : director Detlev Witte : Poet Renate Heymer : Anita Wolfgang Winkler : Reservist Hans Hofer : man with scales Petra Kelling : student Armin Mechsner : Student Berko Acker : young man Ilona Günther : Anne Elke Schuhrk : Petra Bernt Schröter : 1st boy in the bathing establishment Klaus Briege : 2nd boy in the bathing establishment Georgia Kalla : 1st female jumper Regina Beyer : 2nd jumper Hans Kratzert : Mischa Jean Rol-Tanguy : interpreter Heinz Delitzsch : Trainer Edward Bartoshevich : Ambassador János Fehér : tourist guide Elke Kube : 1st pantomime Artur Wandtke : 2nd pantomime Volkmar Otto : 3rd pantomime Heidi Geese : student Heidemarie Schneider : student Jürgen Krumrey : Student Detlef Heintze : student Claudia Maetzig : student

The girl on the board is a German sports film of the DEFA of Kurt Maetzig from the year 1967th

action

The 18-year-old water diver Katharina and her teammate Claudia have a chance of victory in an international competition. Claudia injured herself during the final training and cannot show the planned difficult jump with a double screw from a three-meter board. She would have been the only one with a jump of this difficulty level. So far, Katharina has only been able to safely jump off the one-meter board. When Claudia accuses her of only being afraid of the three-meter board, Katharina hopes to be able to convert her anger over Claudia's injury into courage. Because she doesn't want to let her teammate down, she agrees to show the difficult jump off the three-meter board. She also asserts herself against her trainer Korn, who has concerns. During the competition, Katharina cannot overcome her fear and breaks off the jump during the execution. The so far runner-up in the competition will initially receive low points; later the jump will be completely removed from the rating. Katharina is devastated. For the next six weeks she fought against her jumping blockade, but she couldn't bring herself to jump from the three-meter board. Trainer Korn then takes her out of training for a week. She should realize what is really between her and the jump.

Katharina is ashamed and does not tell her mother about the exclusion from the training. When she got worse and worse grades in school, she thought she was a failure. In her mind, the dramaturge Karl Klemm runs into the car, which encourages Katharina. When she asked what fear was, he called fear “fantasy before risk”. Over the next few days, Katharina meets various people, including a reservist who discovers a resemblance between Katharina and his bride and wants to drink with her. She gives him hope, he's afraid that his bride hasn't been waiting for him.

Catherine goes to the movies and sees nine days a year of Mikhail Romm on. The film is discussed at school the next day and Katharina interprets a scene in such a way that a person has to carry on when he has started, no matter what circumstances accompany this continuation. On the way home at the side of her German teacher, she wants to know again what fear is, and the teacher says that fear is unworthy. A little later Katharina meets Klemm again, who picks her up in the evening. You go to an artist party where Katharina meets the journalist Peter. Although he will only be at the Baltic Sea for a few days, a love story unfolds between the two of them. She shows him her city and they both visit a swimming pool, where Katharina jumps off the board for the first time. On the evening of his departure, Katharina is transformed. From the stories she told Peter, she herself noticed that sport dominates her life and that she cannot do without it. She and Peter split up in friendship, as Peter has noticed that she is still too young for a serious relationship.

The week is over. The night before her return to the swimming pool, Katharina dreams that she has mastered the difficult jump from the three-meter board. She returns to the jumping arena in a positive mood and is greeted enthusiastically by everyone. She confidently steps onto the three-meter board and makes the jump into the water without any mistakes. Cheers breaks out and her teammates and the trainer hug Katharina as she comes out of the water.

production

Christiane Lanzke (left) in 1964 during the Olympic elimination in high diving in Cologne

The girl on the board was a film project that Kurt Maetzig and Ralph Knebel had already started before the 11th plenum of the SED Central Committee in 1965. The film was finally shot in 1966 with the support of the swimming associations of the GDR, the USSR and the Czechoslovakia. Filming locations included Moscow, Prague, Berlin, Rostock and Dresden as well as the Baltic Sea coast near Warnemünde. The costumes come from Katrin Johnsen , the film structures were created by Dieter Adam . It became Maetzig's first film after The Rabbit I am banned and the 300th DEFA film registered.

The main role of Katharina was taken on by high diver Christiane Lanzke , vice European champion in artificial diving in 1962 and fifth in the Olympic diving in Tokyo in 1964 . Critics therefore spoke of a "documentary conception" of the film, since Lanzke "can largely act himself". Lanzke was not doubled for the film, while Monika Woytowicz 's jumps as Claudia were carried out by Gabriele Krauss-Schöpe , third place in the European Championship in 1962 and 1966.

The girl on the board had its premiere on February 16, 1967 in the Berlin cosmos and was shown in GDR cinemas the following day. On November 14, 1969 it ran for the first time on DFF 1 on East German television. In the GDR, the film received the state rating of "valuable".

criticism

"Despite realistic approaches, the film remained inconsistent between theoretical dialogues and applied filmic elements," said Frank-Burkhard Habel looking back. Klaus Wischnewski called The Girl on the Board “a film based on real observation and psychological exploration”.

For the film service , The Girl on the Board was "thematically attractive, but artistically not very dramatic and a little poor in terms of performance."

literature

• F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 377-378 .

Web links

• The girl on the board in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The girl on the board at filmportal.de
• The girl on the board at the DEFA Foundation

Individual evidence

1. ^ Klaus Wischnewski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 218.
2. ↑ ^{a b} F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 377 .
3. ↑ Peter Rabenalt in: Film-Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen , No. 2, 1967, cited above. after Habel, p. 377.
4. ↑ See the girl on the board on progress-film.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Klaus Wischnewski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 219.
6. ↑ The girl on the board. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .