film told the story of prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp who risk their lives to hide a jewish boy, Stefan Jerzy Zweig. The film is now regarded as a classic anti-fascist DEFA studio films. His next film, the 1963 comedy Carbide and Sorrel was a major popular success. In 1966 Frank Beyer directed the film Trace of Stones based on a novel by Erik Neutsch. The film is set in contemporary East Germany and is about the clash between conservative party functionaries, an unconventional and brazen foreman and a young and pragmatic party secretary and engineer on a construction site. Although the premiere at the Worker's Film Festival in Potsdam on 15 June 1966 was a success, the film premiere two weeks later in East Berlin caused a major scandal. After a few minutes the screening was interrupted by protests over the depiction of party functionaries in the film. Similar protests occurred during other film screening in East Berlin, Leipzig and Rostock and after three days the film was recalled from distribution and all press coverage ceased except for a harsh film review in Neues Deutschland. Only in 1989 shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall was Trace of Stones] shown again publicly in East Germany. Work for television (1967–1980) Frank Beyer faced severe personal consequences. He had to leave the DEFA studios and was for several years not allowed to direct theatrical films. To "rehabilitate" him the party sent him to Dresden where he worked at the State Theater from 1967 to 1969. As a guest he also worked at the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater in Görlitz and Zittau and at the Maxim Gorki Theater in East Berlin. Despite being banned from directing theatrical films, Frank Beyer was allowed to direct a film for East German television in 1968. The television film Der Geizige after the play The Miser by Molière was realized with the cast of the State Theater in Dresden. In 1971 he directed the five part television film Rottenknechte on the last days of the German navy during World War II, and in 1973 the four part television film Die sieben Affären der Doña Juanita with his wife Renate Blume in the leading role. The film, which concentrates on the private and romantic life of a young woman, generated debates on marriage, relationships and socialist moral across the country. His first theatrical film after almost ten years