Following Ralf Forster’s Greif zur Kamera, gib der Freizeit einen Sinn. Amateurfilm in der DDR (nominated for the Willy Haas Award in 2019), media studies scholar Dennis Basaldella has now made another important contribution to the reappraisal of East German film history beyond DEFA, shedding light on a comparatively unknown side of the film industry in the GDR. The 348-page monograph, which stems from the author’s PhD dissertation at the University of Hamburg, focuses on the individual Horst Klein (1920-1994), whose career as a »freelance filmmaker« in the GDR seems both typical and atypical. In this micro-study, Klein’s career stands in for an entire profession that has hitherto been largely neglected by researchers. In his detailed investigation and meticulous (re)construction of Klein’s life and work, the author conducted, for the first time, a thorough, systematic, and scholarly analysis of a unique source: Horst Klein’s personal estate preserved at Filmmuseum Potsdam. A commendable effort.