The festival fails to be held between 1957-1959 - each time with different explanations and reasons:
1957 the Ministry of Culture decides that the festival will not be staged due to the "deteriorating situation in West German film making".
The following year, the changing inter-German situation and deteriorating relations, the loss of the original function of the festival as a "German cultural and documentary film week". The reasons behind this are the accession of the FRG to NATO and that of the GDR to the Warsaw Pact and the corresponding bloc integration of the two German states.
1959 the committee of the film week considers the establishment of a "Cultural and documentary film week of the socialist states". The Club der Filmschaffenden speaks out against the move, which is contrary to an "unrestricted international forum in Leipzig", the festival fails to be held once again.