DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) was the central cinema film production studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the produced film material has been made licensable on the PROGRESS archive platform since 1998. The "licensable" approach is legally very in doubt here and highly discussed over the decades after the fall of the wall, since the DEFA was not a privat owned property but a state-founded so called VEB. In GDR terminology this means that this is owned by all the citizens of the country and therefor not transferable to a privat company selling it now.

Many of the DEFA films gain retrospective respect all over the world and many of the most known movies replay in the yearly TV program of Germany and other countries.