Helke Sander

Helke Sander: Cleaning House

why am i aggressive as a mother? why am i unhappy with a man i love? why is the man unhappy too? and why does his unhappiness seem more bearable to me than mine? - helke sander, february 1968

Come With Me to the Cinema – The Gregors

From the 1950s onwards, Erika and Ulrich Gregor brought countless film historical milestones to Berlin and shaped cinema discourse in post-war Germany. A look at the life and work of the couple without whom Arsenal and the Forum wouldn’t exist.

A German Youth

At the end of the 1960s the post-war generation began to revolt against their parents. This was a generation disillusioned by anti-communist capitalism and a state apparatus in which they believed they saw fascist tendencies. This generation included journalist Ulrike Meinhof, lawyer Horst Mahler, filmmaker Holger Meins as well as students Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader.

Mitten im Malestream

A documentary essay on the 1960s women's liberation movement in Germany and it's developments and conflicts through the following decades.

Who is Helene Schwarz?

Only the chosen few know this woman who started working as a secretary for the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) on 13 February, 1966. The path of Helen’s career is paved with famous names – including that of Wolfgang Petersen, Holger Meins (who later became a member of the Red Army Faction) as well as directors Wolfgang Becker, Detlev Buck and Christian Petzold. All have fond memories of forgetting their troubles after having poured their hearts out over a cup of coffee in Helene’s office – for Helene was both friend and advisor to countless film students.

Bungalow

A major work of the celebrated Berlin School, the debut of Ulrich Köhler (In My Room) is a mesmerizing portrait of a young German soldier named Paul who goes AWOL and returns to his childhood home in the countryside. Over a few summer days, Paul evades the responsibilities of everyday life and falls in love with his brother’s girlfriend, disrupting the lives of everyone in his circle. With Köhler’s penchant for deadpan humor and subtle performances, Bungalow becomes a quiet mockery of militarism, familial estrangement, and youthful ennui.

Dorf

A woman from a big city moves to a small village near the former border zone between East and West Germany. What is she looking for? What will she encounter? Rural life in the era of globa­li­sa­tion turns into an adven­ture. History lives in objects, stories and customs here since it was first recorded 800 years ago. Wars and famines have left their traces, just as churches, poli­tical parties and various forms of govern­ment. The change of the times, struc­tured by tele­vi­sion, has almost obscu­rely changed the old rhythms of life; super­market offers changed eating habits and food stock economy. Is it folk­lore nost­algia or a matter of preser­ving one’s way and quality of life to keep the old customs and habits, such as preser­ving old types of plants and boiling down cucum­bers? The village - a mutual exch­ange of expe­ri­ences and garden products. The village is like an onion: it shows ever new surpri­sing layers and leads us deep into unwritten pasts.

Liberators Take Liberties

Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time.

The Germans and Their Men

A documentary with fictious elements. Ms. Elisabeth (Lieschen) Müller from Austria comes to Bonn, Germany to find herself a man. During the search she investigates the connections between neckties, political power and prostitution, and tries to look for the influence the german feminist movement had on the men in Germany's capital.

Love Is the Beginning of All Terror

Story concerns two friends, Freya and Irmtraut and their relationships with the same man, Traugott, who finds it impossible to choose between the two women.

Fräulein Berlin

Berlin Underground-star Ulrike S. went to the Toronto-Filmfestival and then to New York - to find out something about the film business and also about her own desires, daydreams and nightmares.

Der subjektive Faktor

At the end of the 1960s a young woman lays the foundation of the women's movement. As well as political initiatives against male dominance, a detailed picture is drawn of society, which establishes the women’s motivation.

The All-Around Reduced Personality: Redupers

Edda Chiemnyjewski, a freelance press photographer and single mother living in 1970s West Berlin, is confronted with the fact that "a cook has no time for affairs of state". She also fails to find a market for the project she has been working on with her women′s photography group that seeks to document the city. While from today′s perspective the city, which becomes one of the film′s protagonists, looks like post-war Berlin, little has actually changed as regards the precarious existence of free-lancers. With a heavy dose of self-irony Helke Sander, who also plays the leading role, tells of a divided life in a divided city.

Invisible Adversaries

Anna, an artist, is obsessed with the invasion of alien doubles bent on total destruction. Her schizophrenia is reflected in the juxtapositions of long movie camera takes with violently edited montages: private with public spaces; black & white with colour, still photographs with video, earsplitting sounds with disruptive camera angles. Anna uses her body like a map; after a devastating quarrel with her lover, she paints red stitches on herself. Watching their scenes together, we realize how seldom, if ever before, the details of sexual intimacy have been shown in film from the point of view from a woman. Export privileges rupture over unity and never settles for one-dimensional solutions

Wochenschau I: Requiem für eine Firma

Film by a student collective of the dffb.

Their Newspapers

Ihre Zeitungen is a political film rooted in the 1968 student campaign against the Springer press group, which controlled popular dailies such as the Berliner Zeitung and the Bild Zeitung. Claiming the latter were manipulating public opinion, the students laid siege to the publisher's offices. These events made a strong impression on the German collective conscience, and it's in this context that Farocki made this "agit-prop" film.

3000 Houses

“Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can’t agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city.” - Hartmut Bitomsky

Anmass - Mass

Analysis of an incident in Nazi Germany involving a man and a jewish woman.