Frank Beyer, 74; East Germany Banned Some of Director’s Movies

Frank Beyer, 74, a well-known film director in the former East Germany who saw some of his movies banned by its communist authorities, died Sunday in Berlin after a long illness.

Beyer’s films included “Spur der Steine” (“Traces of Stone”), a critical treatment of life and work in the communist state, which was banned in East Germany three days after its premiere in 1966.

The director was unable to work in the film industry for years afterward, and worked at the Dresden theater and for East German television before he returned to the DEFA movie studio in 1974 and directed “Jakob, der Luegner” (“Jacob the Liar”).

That movie was the only one from East Germany to win an Oscar nomination, for best foreign-language film. Based on a novel by Jurek Becker, it follows a Jewish man who invents news stories about impending Nazi defeat to bolster spirits in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.

Hungarian director Peter Kassovitz remade the film in 1999, with Robin Williams in the title role as “Jakob the Liar.”

Born May 26, 1932, in the east German town of Nobitz, Beyer studied in Prague.

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, reuniting Germany, and two years later Beyer won the German Film Prize for his life’s work.