From “Rosa Luxemburg” in 1986 to 2012’s “Hannah Arendt,” the films of Margarethe Von Trotta, an icon of the New German cinema, have put strong female protagonists center-stage in renditions of German history. For her latest, Von Trotta paints a portrait of German poet Ingeborg Bachmann, author of essays, radio dramas, and opera libretti. Working across media and a doctor of philosophy, Bachmann was also an important figure in the women’s rights and liberation movement in post-war Germany.
Continue reading ‘Ingeborg Bachman – Journey Into The Desert’ Review: Vicky Krieps’s Sensational Performance Leads Period Piece About Art, Love, And Suspicion [Berlin] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Ingeborg Bachman – Journey Into The Desert’ Review: Vicky Krieps’s Sensational Performance Leads Period Piece About Art, Love, And Suspicion [Berlin] at The Playlist.
- 2/20/2023
- by Savina Petkova
- The Playlist
German film director, screenwriter, and actor Margarethe von Trotta will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th European Film Awards.
Set to take place on Dec. 10 in Reykjavik, Iceland, the award ceremony will pay tribute to von Trotta’s “unique contribution to the world of film.”
Born in Berlin, von Trotta grew up with her mother in the German city of Düsseldorf and started her career acting in theater and in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff. She went on to become a leading female director of European auteur cinema and made her directorial debut in 1978 with “The Second Awakening of Christa Klages.” Her credits include “Marianne & Juliane” which won the Golden Lion in Venice in 1981, “Sheer Madness,” which competed in Berlin in 1983, and “Rosa Luxemburg,” which premiered in Cannes in 1986 and won Barbara Sukowa the Best Actress Award. The film also received an...
Set to take place on Dec. 10 in Reykjavik, Iceland, the award ceremony will pay tribute to von Trotta’s “unique contribution to the world of film.”
Born in Berlin, von Trotta grew up with her mother in the German city of Düsseldorf and started her career acting in theater and in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff. She went on to become a leading female director of European auteur cinema and made her directorial debut in 1978 with “The Second Awakening of Christa Klages.” Her credits include “Marianne & Juliane” which won the Golden Lion in Venice in 1981, “Sheer Madness,” which competed in Berlin in 1983, and “Rosa Luxemburg,” which premiered in Cannes in 1986 and won Barbara Sukowa the Best Actress Award. The film also received an...
- 8/23/2022
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Franz Rath, the veteran German DoP known for his collaborations with directors such as Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe Von Trotta, has died aged 88, according to the German Society of Cinematographers.
Rath passed away on December 26, 2020, in Graefelfing, Germany.
Born June 22, 1932, in Eltville, Rath’s first film was well-received 1966 Cannes drama Young Torless by German filmmaker Schlöndorff. The DoP was awarded a German Film Award for their second collaboration Degree Of Murder, starring Anita Pellenberg.
In 1977 he started working closely with Margarethe von Trotta and would go on to make eight films with the director, including acclaimed dramas Rosa Luxemburg, The Promise (for which he won a German Camera Award) and Rosenstrasse.
He also worked on numerous TV productions and with directors including Mike Roemer, Josef Sargent, Kurt Gloor, Franz Peter Wirth and Egon Monk. In 1984, he served as second unit DoP on cult kids film The NeverEnding Story.
The German...
Rath passed away on December 26, 2020, in Graefelfing, Germany.
Born June 22, 1932, in Eltville, Rath’s first film was well-received 1966 Cannes drama Young Torless by German filmmaker Schlöndorff. The DoP was awarded a German Film Award for their second collaboration Degree Of Murder, starring Anita Pellenberg.
In 1977 he started working closely with Margarethe von Trotta and would go on to make eight films with the director, including acclaimed dramas Rosa Luxemburg, The Promise (for which he won a German Camera Award) and Rosenstrasse.
He also worked on numerous TV productions and with directors including Mike Roemer, Josef Sargent, Kurt Gloor, Franz Peter Wirth and Egon Monk. In 1984, he served as second unit DoP on cult kids film The NeverEnding Story.
The German...
- 1/5/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Zurich-Berlin based Tellfilm, producer of “Blue My Mind” from “Killing Eve” director Lisa Brühlmann, is set to go into production on Aug. 22 on its biggest movie yet, “Monte Verità,” a period drama about a woman’s across-the-board emancipation.
Set to shoot in the Locarno region of Ticino, southern Switzerland, “Monte Verita” is lead produced by Tellfilm and co-produced by Vienna’s Kgp Filmproduction and Coin Film in Germany’s Cologne.
Directed by Stefan Jäger (“Horizon Beautiful”), “Monte Verità” consolidates Tellfilm’s transformation from a company making movies targeting the Swiss domestic market into one creating higher-profile European co-productions.
“‘Blue My Mind’ and ‘Animals’ marked a kind of breakthrough for us. ’Monte Verità’ is our next step, the biggest Telefilm production to date. We have become bigger and more international,” said Katrin Renz, CEO at Tellfilm and one of the European Film Promotion’s 2018 Producers on the Move at the 71st Cannes Festival.
Set to shoot in the Locarno region of Ticino, southern Switzerland, “Monte Verita” is lead produced by Tellfilm and co-produced by Vienna’s Kgp Filmproduction and Coin Film in Germany’s Cologne.
Directed by Stefan Jäger (“Horizon Beautiful”), “Monte Verità” consolidates Tellfilm’s transformation from a company making movies targeting the Swiss domestic market into one creating higher-profile European co-productions.
“‘Blue My Mind’ and ‘Animals’ marked a kind of breakthrough for us. ’Monte Verità’ is our next step, the biggest Telefilm production to date. We have become bigger and more international,” said Katrin Renz, CEO at Tellfilm and one of the European Film Promotion’s 2018 Producers on the Move at the 71st Cannes Festival.
- 8/11/2020
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Gulabi GangThe legacy of feminist cinema showcases the complexities of women’s humanity through different prisms of ideology, time, landscapes, and national origin. The revolutionary potential of witnessing women’s liberation through a visual medium has provided a deeper and more complex portrayal of the diversity of narratives and characters that have otherwise been stripped from other areas of culture. These will only grow under the blossoming contemporary feminist movement that will celebrate the 103th anniversary of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2017. This anniversary comes mere months after the momentous Women’s March, whose formation has roots in the result of Donald Trump’s presidential win but was truly years in the making with cuts to reproductive healthcare access, trans and queer civil rights, and general inadequacies towards women. The galvanization of millions of women around the world has ushered an even greater desire for better representation on screen,...
- 3/8/2017
- MUBI
Pamela Katz, Carrie Welch with Margarethe von Trotta on the Return To Montauk set Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Volker Schlöndorff, Oscar-winning director for The Tin Drum, based on Günter Grass's novel Die Blechtrommel, invited me to join him on the set for his latest film, Return To Montauk (Rückkehr Nach Montauk), while he was shooting scenes with Stellan Skarsgård and Susanne Wolff at the New York Public Library. The film also stars Nina Hoss and Niels Arestrup (brilliant in Diplomacy with André Dussollier). Screenwriter Colm Tóibín, along with Margarethe von Trotta and her co-writer Pam Katz (The Other Woman (Die Andere Frau), Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt) were up on the steps.
Margarethe von Trotta with Volker Schlöndorff Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Von Trotta co-wrote and co-directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum with Volker, based on Heinrich Böll's novel and he directed her in their script for Coup de Grâce.
Volker Schlöndorff, Oscar-winning director for The Tin Drum, based on Günter Grass's novel Die Blechtrommel, invited me to join him on the set for his latest film, Return To Montauk (Rückkehr Nach Montauk), while he was shooting scenes with Stellan Skarsgård and Susanne Wolff at the New York Public Library. The film also stars Nina Hoss and Niels Arestrup (brilliant in Diplomacy with André Dussollier). Screenwriter Colm Tóibín, along with Margarethe von Trotta and her co-writer Pam Katz (The Other Woman (Die Andere Frau), Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt) were up on the steps.
Margarethe von Trotta with Volker Schlöndorff Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Von Trotta co-wrote and co-directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum with Volker, based on Heinrich Böll's novel and he directed her in their script for Coup de Grâce.
- 5/7/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Hannah Arendt
Written by Margarethe von Trotta and Pam Katz
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta
Germany, Luxembourg, and France, 2012
Crafting a film around a large body of work surrounding a philosopher is no easy matter. It is easy to enter the realm of condescension when trying to communicate the ideas that ruled their lives, as with the depiction of Hypatia in Agora, making even the fundamentals of mathematics so mind-numbingly dull and obvious that we may start to root for the derelict students. A blunt presentation of the lessons of the Tractatus lends to our suspicion that Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein is a floating wisp of cerebral indulgence, although the strengths of that film lie in Jarman’s masterful formalistic, abstract qualities rather than the communication of the ideas of early analytic philosophy. With Hannah Arendt, Margarethe von Trotta, previously known for her emergence in New German Cinema alongside Fassbinder...
Written by Margarethe von Trotta and Pam Katz
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta
Germany, Luxembourg, and France, 2012
Crafting a film around a large body of work surrounding a philosopher is no easy matter. It is easy to enter the realm of condescension when trying to communicate the ideas that ruled their lives, as with the depiction of Hypatia in Agora, making even the fundamentals of mathematics so mind-numbingly dull and obvious that we may start to root for the derelict students. A blunt presentation of the lessons of the Tractatus lends to our suspicion that Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein is a floating wisp of cerebral indulgence, although the strengths of that film lie in Jarman’s masterful formalistic, abstract qualities rather than the communication of the ideas of early analytic philosophy. With Hannah Arendt, Margarethe von Trotta, previously known for her emergence in New German Cinema alongside Fassbinder...
- 1/3/2014
- by Zach Lewis
- SoundOnSight
Versatile actor at Berlin's Schaubühne theatre who made films with Wim Wenders and Eric Rohmer
The German actor Otto Sander, who has died aged 72 after suffering from cancer, made his name as one of the members of Peter Stein's Schaubühne theatre in Berlin, where he developed a versatile but precise stage presence that he brought to all kinds of roles. Sander also had more than 100 credits in film and TV productions, most notably Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (The Boat, 1981), as a drunk and disillusioned U-boat captain, and Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire, 1987), as one of the two angels in Wim Wenders's magical survey of the divided city.
Born in Hanover, Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated from the Friederichsgymnasium in 1961. He did his military service as a naval reserve officer. In 1965, in his first engagement at the Düsseldorf Kammerspiele, he showed a natural...
The German actor Otto Sander, who has died aged 72 after suffering from cancer, made his name as one of the members of Peter Stein's Schaubühne theatre in Berlin, where he developed a versatile but precise stage presence that he brought to all kinds of roles. Sander also had more than 100 credits in film and TV productions, most notably Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (The Boat, 1981), as a drunk and disillusioned U-boat captain, and Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire, 1987), as one of the two angels in Wim Wenders's magical survey of the divided city.
Born in Hanover, Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated from the Friederichsgymnasium in 1961. He did his military service as a naval reserve officer. In 1965, in his first engagement at the Düsseldorf Kammerspiele, he showed a natural...
- 9/13/2013
- by Hugh Rorrison
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – “Hannah Arendt” comes to American cinemas packaged in the sort of prestige that elicits admiration rather than anticipation. Though Margarethe von Trotta is widely regarded as the leading female filmmaker in Germany, it’s doubtful that any audiences outside of her native country are all that familiar with her work. Her new film, “Hannah Arendt,” is so undistinguished that it’s hard to believe that it was made by a director often mentioned in the same breath as Fassbinder and Herzog.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Von Trotta’s long-standing interest in feminist icons has led her to make a series of historical (yet often fictionalized) biopics, many of which provided showcases for acclaimed actress Barbara Sukowa (she won Best Actress at Cannes for playing the titular role in Von Trotta’s 1996 effort, “Rosa Luxemburg”). Since none of these previous films were viewed by me, I was initially taken aback by Sukowa’s portrayal of Arendt,...
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Von Trotta’s long-standing interest in feminist icons has led her to make a series of historical (yet often fictionalized) biopics, many of which provided showcases for acclaimed actress Barbara Sukowa (she won Best Actress at Cannes for playing the titular role in Von Trotta’s 1996 effort, “Rosa Luxemburg”). Since none of these previous films were viewed by me, I was initially taken aback by Sukowa’s portrayal of Arendt,...
- 8/16/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The most evocative and engrossing picture this writer has ever encountered about the life and times of a thinker is Hannah Arendt, German filmmaker and actress Margarethe von Trotta’s magnificent meditation on the incendiary political theorist. Reuniting with her Vision (2009) and Rosa Luxemburg (1986) star Barbara Sukowa, the ex-Fassbinder muse has delivered a titanic and highly unusual work, a film of rare intelligence that animates the life of a protean mind in a manner that is at once spartan, highly dramatic, and incredibly timely. Hannah Arendt focuses on the period immediately before, during and after Arendt’s famous coverage of the Adolf Eichmann …...
- 5/29/2013
- by Brandon Harris
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Zeitgeist Films has sent along the poster, images and trailer for Hannah Arendt, starring Barbara Sukowa, Axel Milberg, Janet McTeer, Julia Jentsch, Ulrich Noethen and Michael Degen. The film opens at Film Forum in NYC on May 29, 2013 and at The Royal in West La, Playhouse 7 in Pasadena and Town Center in Encino on June 7, 2013. A national release will follow. The sublime Barbara Sukowa reteams with director Margarethe von Trotta (Vision, Rosa Luxemburg) for her brilliant new biopic of influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker—controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann...
- 4/22/2013
- Upcoming-Movies.com
Five brave films have made Tiff stand out in a very particular way for me this year. Usually I, among hordes of others, am busiest chasing down the next Academy Award contenders, the high priced U.S. acquisitions or the major sleeper of the festival. Those films are repeatedly covered by the trades, and my Rights Roundup will keep a running talley on all announced pickups worldwide of all the films.
These other brave films are the films which motivate our best filmmakers to create works of art in the first place of filmmaking on my charts.
I already covered Annemarie Jacir's newest film, When I Saw You (Isa: The Match Factory), about a young Palestinian boy in 1967 who, when placed in a Jordanian camp with his mother, insists on returning to his home to find his father. Annemarie is a beautifully determined Jordanian filmmaker who will make films which reflect our world's diversity, speaking out for women and children who would otherwise have no voice. Although there are several films dealing with these refugee camps of Palestinians which were supposed to be temporary but have remained in countries such as Lebanon and Jordan. for three generations, further marginalizing the dispossessed, this one stands out for me because it shows the woman and child in their own private spheres, marginalizing the male politics of the situation. The child's refusal to accept artificial barriers and borders triumphs in the end. That is the only hope for world unity.
Its opposite is realized in Costa Gavras' new film Capital, where money and corporate interests know no borders, and the socialist dream is turned on its head. This film was supported by the French; When I Saw You was supported by Abu Dhabi film funds. Both are important views of life in two vastly different segments of the world today. Will either see wide distribution? The Match Factory who has the most films in Toronto of any sales agent is selling the former and Elle Driver is selling the latter. We'll watch the sales on these two issue oriented dramas' sales.
Another film The Match Factory is handling is Hannah Arendt, directed by Margarethe von Trotta, another filmmaker who is fearless in facing deeply philosophical and important issue. Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest political analysts of the Xx° century, who coined the phrase, "the banality of evil" when she covered the Jerusalem trial of Adolph Eichmann in 1961, and, in so doing, lost many of her best friends, is here portrayed by Barbara Sukowa, who revives the 60s in the New York German Jewish intellectual milieu, reminding us of the days when the New School was tackling tough issues and New Yorker magazine was articulating issues of great importance which today are just as urgent as they were then. The nature of totalitarianism includes victims and oppressors in a cycle of silence which in turn, creates evil because no one speaks up to protest. It took Von Trotta 10 years to make this film in spite of her winning the Venice Fest's Golden Lion for Marianne and Juliane in 1981, a story sharing the theme that von Trotta uses throughout her works, that “the personal is political", or Barbara Sukowa's winning Best Actress for in Venice for the same movie and Best Actress at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival for her work in von Trotta's film Rosa Luxemburg. The New York of this story ("Paradise" as the most wonderful Barbara Sukowa named it in Hannah Arendt) is so well captured because Barbara Sukowa is not only the consummate German as seen in her roles in Fassbinder's films but is also a longtime New Yorker, married to the artist Robert Longo. In addition to those credentials, the scriptwriter is Pamela Katz who wrote Von Trotta's Rosenstrasse is also a New Yorker married to the German Dp Florian Ballhaus (The Devil Wears Prada), the son of the legendary Michael Ballhaus. They all live in the same New York that they inherited from the very people they recreate in the film!
And yet another brave film about a brave woman is The Patience Stone (Isa: Le Pacte) by Atik Rahimi which was just picked up for U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics which will ignite a lot more sales for Le Pacte and which puts it into the Best Foreign Language Academy Award company for 2012. So far, Brazil is the only buyer registered on Cinando. Watch the film on Cinando! It is pure poetry. Piers Handling himself recommended it and it was the buzz film of the festival. It is a movie which Muslim fundamentalists would never allow to be made; and they will hate it.
The issue of religious fundamentalism was also treated with great delicacy in Mira Nair's story of cross cultural belief systems at odds. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Isa: K5 International who also sold the great sleeper, The Visitors) stars Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber and Kiefer Sutherland. Riz Ahmed who also starred in Trishna is someone who you will want to see again, and I hope we see him soon! He graduated Oxford University with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and later enrolled into London's Central School of Speech and Drama. He's quoted in IMDb as saying, "[Oxford University] is socially unrepresentative about the real world. The first person I met, I asked to borrow a phone charger. She looked at me, laughed in my face, and told me with no irony or malice that I looked just like Ali G." Ironically, he reminds me of Gordon Warnicke who played Omar in My Beautiful Laundrette and who is British born of South American and German ancestry (and who is probably Jewish). IFC snapped up North American rights to this outstanding film in which Pakistan and Wall Street unite and divide as a smart young Pakistani enters the Hallowed Halls of the Ivy League, Big Business on Wall Street and High Society via Romance until September 11, 2001 shatters the illusions of peace and prosperity we all had been harboring.
There are many more brave and wonderful films which screened this year at Tiff, but for me, these were the ones I was honored to catch. I hope my readers get the chance to see these!
These other brave films are the films which motivate our best filmmakers to create works of art in the first place of filmmaking on my charts.
I already covered Annemarie Jacir's newest film, When I Saw You (Isa: The Match Factory), about a young Palestinian boy in 1967 who, when placed in a Jordanian camp with his mother, insists on returning to his home to find his father. Annemarie is a beautifully determined Jordanian filmmaker who will make films which reflect our world's diversity, speaking out for women and children who would otherwise have no voice. Although there are several films dealing with these refugee camps of Palestinians which were supposed to be temporary but have remained in countries such as Lebanon and Jordan. for three generations, further marginalizing the dispossessed, this one stands out for me because it shows the woman and child in their own private spheres, marginalizing the male politics of the situation. The child's refusal to accept artificial barriers and borders triumphs in the end. That is the only hope for world unity.
Its opposite is realized in Costa Gavras' new film Capital, where money and corporate interests know no borders, and the socialist dream is turned on its head. This film was supported by the French; When I Saw You was supported by Abu Dhabi film funds. Both are important views of life in two vastly different segments of the world today. Will either see wide distribution? The Match Factory who has the most films in Toronto of any sales agent is selling the former and Elle Driver is selling the latter. We'll watch the sales on these two issue oriented dramas' sales.
Another film The Match Factory is handling is Hannah Arendt, directed by Margarethe von Trotta, another filmmaker who is fearless in facing deeply philosophical and important issue. Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest political analysts of the Xx° century, who coined the phrase, "the banality of evil" when she covered the Jerusalem trial of Adolph Eichmann in 1961, and, in so doing, lost many of her best friends, is here portrayed by Barbara Sukowa, who revives the 60s in the New York German Jewish intellectual milieu, reminding us of the days when the New School was tackling tough issues and New Yorker magazine was articulating issues of great importance which today are just as urgent as they were then. The nature of totalitarianism includes victims and oppressors in a cycle of silence which in turn, creates evil because no one speaks up to protest. It took Von Trotta 10 years to make this film in spite of her winning the Venice Fest's Golden Lion for Marianne and Juliane in 1981, a story sharing the theme that von Trotta uses throughout her works, that “the personal is political", or Barbara Sukowa's winning Best Actress for in Venice for the same movie and Best Actress at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival for her work in von Trotta's film Rosa Luxemburg. The New York of this story ("Paradise" as the most wonderful Barbara Sukowa named it in Hannah Arendt) is so well captured because Barbara Sukowa is not only the consummate German as seen in her roles in Fassbinder's films but is also a longtime New Yorker, married to the artist Robert Longo. In addition to those credentials, the scriptwriter is Pamela Katz who wrote Von Trotta's Rosenstrasse is also a New Yorker married to the German Dp Florian Ballhaus (The Devil Wears Prada), the son of the legendary Michael Ballhaus. They all live in the same New York that they inherited from the very people they recreate in the film!
And yet another brave film about a brave woman is The Patience Stone (Isa: Le Pacte) by Atik Rahimi which was just picked up for U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics which will ignite a lot more sales for Le Pacte and which puts it into the Best Foreign Language Academy Award company for 2012. So far, Brazil is the only buyer registered on Cinando. Watch the film on Cinando! It is pure poetry. Piers Handling himself recommended it and it was the buzz film of the festival. It is a movie which Muslim fundamentalists would never allow to be made; and they will hate it.
The issue of religious fundamentalism was also treated with great delicacy in Mira Nair's story of cross cultural belief systems at odds. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Isa: K5 International who also sold the great sleeper, The Visitors) stars Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber and Kiefer Sutherland. Riz Ahmed who also starred in Trishna is someone who you will want to see again, and I hope we see him soon! He graduated Oxford University with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and later enrolled into London's Central School of Speech and Drama. He's quoted in IMDb as saying, "[Oxford University] is socially unrepresentative about the real world. The first person I met, I asked to borrow a phone charger. She looked at me, laughed in my face, and told me with no irony or malice that I looked just like Ali G." Ironically, he reminds me of Gordon Warnicke who played Omar in My Beautiful Laundrette and who is British born of South American and German ancestry (and who is probably Jewish). IFC snapped up North American rights to this outstanding film in which Pakistan and Wall Street unite and divide as a smart young Pakistani enters the Hallowed Halls of the Ivy League, Big Business on Wall Street and High Society via Romance until September 11, 2001 shatters the illusions of peace and prosperity we all had been harboring.
There are many more brave and wonderful films which screened this year at Tiff, but for me, these were the ones I was honored to catch. I hope my readers get the chance to see these!
- 9/17/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Let's join Der Tagesspiegel's Claudia Lenssen in wishing Margarethe von Trotta all the best on her 70th. Lenssen reminds us that when von Trotta hoped to see her first feature, The Second Awakening of Christina Klages (1978), in cinemas, the "fine machos" at the Filmverlag der Autoren in Munich judged it worthy of television, but no more. For the movers and shakers of the New German Cinema, the story of a bank employee and a bank robber who fall for each other was all together too much a woman's picture. Lena (Katharina Thalbach) finds out that the stolen money's supposed to save a kindergarten from being shut down? Not sexy enough.
Lenssen: "Margarethe von Trotta's films are inspired by real events and circumstances. Die bleierne Zeit (Marianne and Juliane, 1981) tells the story of Raf terrorist Gudrun Ensslin and her sister, Christiane, Rosa Luxemburg (1986), the story of the revolutionary who was...
Lenssen: "Margarethe von Trotta's films are inspired by real events and circumstances. Die bleierne Zeit (Marianne and Juliane, 1981) tells the story of Raf terrorist Gudrun Ensslin and her sister, Christiane, Rosa Luxemburg (1986), the story of the revolutionary who was...
- 2/21/2012
- MUBI
Actor best known for her nuanced portrayal of a faded screen idol in Veronika Voss, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
According to the German actor and writer Peter Berling, the most important thing for the director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was "to surround himself with people who needed him for their own survival … from the beginning he wanted to create a 'family', something he himself never had". One devoted member of this family was Rosel Zech, who has died of bone cancer aged 69.
Sadly, Veronika Voss (1982), in which Zech became a Fassbinder star, was the director's penultimate film, released less than four months before his death, at the age of 37, of a drug overdose. "I never felt so comfortable with any other director," Zech declared. "We were just at the beginning and had many plans together." One of these was a biopic of the writer and activist Rosa Luxemburg, the uncompleted...
According to the German actor and writer Peter Berling, the most important thing for the director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was "to surround himself with people who needed him for their own survival … from the beginning he wanted to create a 'family', something he himself never had". One devoted member of this family was Rosel Zech, who has died of bone cancer aged 69.
Sadly, Veronika Voss (1982), in which Zech became a Fassbinder star, was the director's penultimate film, released less than four months before his death, at the age of 37, of a drug overdose. "I never felt so comfortable with any other director," Zech declared. "We were just at the beginning and had many plans together." One of these was a biopic of the writer and activist Rosa Luxemburg, the uncompleted...
- 9/5/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
"Political turmoil. Terrorism. Economic shifts. Suspicion between citizens and state — and, following in the footsteps of Fassbinder, the emergence of a new independent film culture. The themes of Margarethe von Trotta's work couldn't be more compelling for a contemporary viewer, nor indeed their handy suggestions for the Big Society — her third feature The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978) is based on the true story of a young mother who robbed a bank in order to raise funds to keep open a child-care center threatened with closure by the government. The Birds Eye View festival's Filmmaker Focus on von Trotta is well-timed."
In her overview for Sight & Sound — also currently featuring Daniel Trilling's interview with Agnès Varda — Sophie Mayer notes that the program showcases "biopics of two remarkable German women: Rosa Luxemburg (1986) and Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009). Eight centuries apart, each woman — Marxist revolutionary and Benedictine...
In her overview for Sight & Sound — also currently featuring Daniel Trilling's interview with Agnès Varda — Sophie Mayer notes that the program showcases "biopics of two remarkable German women: Rosa Luxemburg (1986) and Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009). Eight centuries apart, each woman — Marxist revolutionary and Benedictine...
- 3/9/2011
- MUBI
German writer-director Margarethe von Trotta started directing movies in the 1970s at a time when there were few women behind the cameras. Not only is she still making films, but she's now recognized as one of the leaders of the German New Wave along with filmmakers like Rainer Werner Fasbinder (Lola, Berlin Alexanderplatz) and Volker Schlöndorf (The Tin Drum), who was once her co-director and husband. The label of "feminist" filmmaker seems far too limiting to describe her career and the content of her films. Her movies have examined terrorism (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, Marianne and Juliane), the effect of the Cold War on Germany (The Promise), the complexity of human relationships (Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness) and the life and work of German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. Her latest movie Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen has...
- 10/20/2010
- by Dan Lybarger
- Huffington Post
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