The dress | MDR.DE

Hunger leads two poor dressmakers (Horst Drenda / Werner Laerke) to a thick-walled town, where – they heard – milk and honey are supposed to flow. But there is also a useless ruler, surrounded by a fake court and a vigilant police force. Out of hunger and not being driven out of the city, the two promise to weave a particularly beautiful dress for the Emperor (Wolf Kaiser), as every creature trembles in awe of the mighty. The office has grown…

Two days ago this was the “glorious building of the democratic anti-fascist protective wall” in Berlin when director Konrad Petzold and screenwriter Egon Gunther presented their film “The Dress” to the DEFA chiefs. Based on the famous fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, they tell the story of all things that happen in the walled city-state of a vain ruler. Bad timing for DEFA, seeing only its 1991 premiere, albeit in a dubbed version, where only the negative can be found in the archives.