1962 declaration by 26 German filmmakers rejecting commercial cinema — launched the New German Cinema movement. Political statement that freed a generation from studio conventions.
1962, Oberhausen — 26 filmmakers stood up and declared: Enough. The cinema of the big studios, of tearjerkers and Heimatfilms, was finished. They wanted to work differently. Not because they wanted to be hip, but because the system was suffocating them. The manifesto was not a theoretical paper for seminars — it was a declaration of war on the established German film industry, which still believed at the time that audiences would pay forever for melodramas.
What the manifesto concretely meant: No more stars, no big sets, no commercial platitudes. The signatories — including Alexander Kluge, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Marie Straub — wanted to return to what film could actually do: show reality, ask questions, experiment. They demanded artistic autonomy, access to production means, and the right to make films that didn't have to make money immediately. This was revolutionary for the FRG of the 1960s — where reconstruction still set the agenda and consumption was considered moral salvation.
For practical work on set, this meant a radical shift: Instead of expensive studios, they went out, shot on 16mm instead of 35mm, worked with small crews, improvised. Editing was no longer just a craft, but an artistic instrument — similar to the Nouvelle Vague, but with German seriousness and political bite. Screenplays were oriented towards literature and social realities instead of entertainment formulas. A cinematographer working in the New German Cinema after 1962 had to rethink: no longer the most beautiful shot, but the necessary shot.
The manifesto itself was short and precise — no long manifesto chatter, but: Dad's cinema is dead. We need artistic freedom. Give us the money, and we'll show you what's possible. This attitude indeed shaped German filmmaking for the next 15 years — from Kluge to Fassbinder, from the roots of Solaris to documentary approaches. Without Oberhausen: no New German Cinema as we know it.