DEFA Fairy Tales (Deluxe Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] [US]

Release Date: April/May 2026

The wildly surreal, music- and color-saturated world of fairy tale films or Märchenfilme from East Germany’s DEFA Studios are one of the great, still-overlooked subgenres in world fantasy filmmaking.   Part Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday morning kiddie psychedelia, part sturdy Socialist moralizing, the Märchenfilme were one of DEFA’s most popular genres from the 1950s to 1970s.  We’re thrilled to collaborate again with the DEFA Film Library at the Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst on this first-ever Blu-ray release of five of their best fairy tale gems:

SNOW WHITE (SCHNEEWITTCHEN) – 1961, 63 min., dir. Gottfried Kolditz.  This lovely live-action version of the classic Bros. Grimm tale is in many ways the prototypical DEFA fairy tale film, with Doris Weikow radiating storybook charm as Snow White.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (ROTKÄPPCHEN) – 1962, 72 min., dir. Götz Friedrich.  Red Riding Hood (Blanche Kommerell) faces off against some of the mangiest and most terrifying forest creatures ever conceived, including The Big Bad Wolf (Werner Dissel) -- basically an American Werewolf in East Germany.  Sure to give your 6-year old self nightmares for life.

MOTHER HULDA (FRAU HOLLE) – 1963, 57 min., dir. Gottfried Kolditz.  Lazy daughter Pechmarie (Katharina Lind) and hardworking stepdaughter Goldmarie (Karin Ugowski vie for the approval of magical Frau Holle, who lives in an insanely artificial Pee Wee’s Playhouse-meets-Lidsville underground world.

THE DEVIL’S THREE GOLDEN HAIRS (WER REIßT DENN GLEICH VOR'M TEUFEL AUS)  – 1977, 92 min., dir. Egon Schlegel.  Crazy fantasy/comedy about a clumsy young man (Hans-Joachim Frank), who is forced to rob three hairs from the Devil (Dieter Franke). The Devil’s psychedelic lair with shrunken heads and gruesome Halloween décor must be seen to be believed.

SNOW WHITE AND ROSE RED (SCHNEEWEIßCHEN UND ROSENROT) - 1979, 70 min., dir. Siegfried Hartmann.  Excellent fantasy / fairy tale about peasant girls Snow White (Julie Juristová) and Rose-Red (Katrin Martin) trying to outwit an enraged dwarf (Hans-Peter Minetti) guarding a jewel-filled mine. Would make a good double bill with HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS.  

All films in German with English subtitles.

Special Features

• New video interview with comics artist (Swamp Thing), film historian, and author Stephen R. Bissette 
• New commentaries by film historians Michael Brooke, Samm Deighan, Shelagh Rowan-Legg and Anne Golden
• “Socialist Fantasies, the Bros. Grimm and DEFA Studios:  Fairytale Filmmaking in East Germany” – new visual essay by film historian Evan Chester
• New artwork by Beth Morris
• Blu-ray authoring by Vital Passenger

Deluxe Edition Bonus Content

• Slipcase featuring new artwork by Mark “Fables” Buckingham
• 80-page illustrated book
• Essays by film scholars Qinna Shen, Rolf Giesen, Walter Chaw and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
• New interview with screenwriter Stefan Kolditz, son of SNOW WHITE and MOTHER HULDA director Gottfried Kolditz
• Rare production photos