The 1920s were a time of brilliant discoveries and bold experiments in German cinema. Film as an art form was still developing, and German directors explored its possibilities with renewed energy. The screen became a place for the trauma of defeat in the First World War, fascination with the uninhibited freedom of the Roaring Twenties, and a premonition of the coming catastrophe — the rise of the National Socialists to power.

The lecture explores the key innovations of German Expressionism in the 1920s and how contemporary filmmakers continue to use them today. How sunlight came to kill screen vampires, why an ogre in an American animated film is called Shrek, and which dragons inspired the creators of Game of Thrones — you will learn all this in the lecture.