Eastern Trails – The Western at DEFA (Region B) Blu-ray ***Preorder*** 9/21

A close relation to the Spaghetti Western, Indianerfilme (later called “Red Westerns” due to their politics) were some of the most popular genre movies produced by East Germany’s state-operated film studio, DEFA. Focusing on the struggles of indigenous tribes against European settlers, they disrupted the frontier myths central to the American Western and made a bonafide superstar of Gojko Mitić, whose appearances in a long line of action-packed Westerns for DEFA made him one of the most famous faces in Europe. Mitić stars in all four of the films presented here: Chingachgook the Great Serpent, Fatal Error, Apaches and Blood Brothers.

Based on James Fenimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, Chingachgook the Great Serpent sees the eponymous Mohican set out to rescue his kidnapped bride-to-be (Andrea Drahota) with the help of a hunter known as Deerslayer (Rolf Römer). In Fatal Error, Native Americans living at the foot of the Rocky Mountains come to regret doing business with the corrupt Wyoming Oil Company. Apaches follows a young warrior as he sets out to avenge the massacre of his tribe at the hands of a ruthless mercenary (Milan Beli). Finally, Blood Brothers stars Dean Reed – an actor and singer-songwriter nicknamed the “Red Elvis” – as an American deserter who comes to fight alongside a Native American tribe.

Following the enormous success of The Sons of Great Bear in 1966, East Germany’s series of Indianerfilme remained popular for the next two decades, finding enthusiastic audiences throughout Central and Eastern Europe and even as far afield as Cuba. The Masters of Cinema series is thrilled to present a selection of DEFA’s “Red Westerns” on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.