Searching for Traces in Ruins: Praktica Cameras from Saxony

It was not only in the GDR that everyone had one. The Practicas were sought after in West Germany too. In 1949 – with the founding of the republic – the first of these single-lens reflex cameras came onto the market. That was the beginning of a triumphal procession through Europe. For 40 years the Practicas were manufactured in Dresden in what later became VEB Pentacon, a state-owned enterprise with more than 9000 employees. After reunification, Pentacon fared like most state-owned enterprises of the GDR. In 1990 it had to file for insolvency. And yet the Practica and Pentacon had come a long way. All the way into space. In the 1970s the plant was required to take part in the Soviet space programme. And so it came about that the Practica was the first camera in a manned space programme. Sigmund Jähn too captured his view of the Earth with a Practica.

Through contemporary witnesses and with previously unseen footage, the film tells the partly unknown story of the East German photographic camera industry, which played a special role in space exploration and in military research.