...& Hannah & Rosa & Marianne & Juliane. New German Cinema director Margarethe von Trotta has been working with actress Barbara Sukowa for over three decades, portraying women who think, question and rebel. GOETHE FILMS presents MARIANNE & JULIANE (1981), ROSA LUXEMBURG (1986) and HANNAH ARENDT (2012) as a conversation about female resilience.
MARIANNE AND JULIANE (DIE BLEIERNE ZEIT, Germany 1981, 106 min), directed by Margarethe von Trotta, with Barbara Sukowa, Jutta Lampe & Rüdiger Vogler
Introduced by lead actress Barbara Sukowa
Golden Lion, Golden Phoenix & FIPRESCI Award, Venice Film Festival 1981
2 German Film Awards 1982 Part of The Female Gaze: Sight & Sound magazine's selection of 100 overlooked films directed by women
Marianne and Juliane are sisters growing up in post-war West Germany, as the country moved from austerity to plenty but remained a place of repression and denial of its recent past. During the 1960s, both women fight for social change, but each in her own way: Juliane as a pro-abortion campaigner, Marianne by joining a communist terror organization. When Marianne dies suddenly in a high-security jail, Juliane dedicates herself to uncovering the true circumstances of her sister’s death. A story of political resistance and personal loss.
Enjoy this rare occasion to see a significant work of New German Cinema.
(German trailer)
"A highly intelligent and profound story set against the politics of Cold War West Germany, as meaningful and poignant today as it was when it was made." - Sight & Sound Magazine
Margarethe von Trotta (born 1942 in Berlin) ranks among the most important female directors in German cinema and has been called "the world’s leading feminist filmmaker." She also made a name for herself as an actress, starring in films by well-known German directors such as Fassbinder and Schlöndorff. Her films are concerned with relationships between and among women (sisters, best friends), as well as with relationships between women and men, often in political settings. Her best-known films include: "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" (1975, co-directed with Volker Schlöndorff), "The Second Awakening of Christa Klages" (1977), "Marianne and Juliane" ("Die Bleierne Zeit", 1981), "Rosa Luxemburg" (1985), and "Hannah Arendt" (2012). She is currently working on a documentary about Ingmar Bergman, taking a closer look at his life and exploring his film legacy with Bergman's closest collaborators.
Barbara Sukowa (born 1950 in Bremen) studied acting at Berlin's Max-Reinhardt-Seminar. Sukowa made her breakthrough in the role of Mieze in Fassbinder's TV adaptation of "Berlin Alexanderplatz". She then played the title role of the small town prostitute "Lola", part of Fassbinder's trilogy about the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. Sukowa starred working with Margarethe von Trotta on "Marianne and Julianne", for which she received the German Film Award in 1982. She won the Golden Palm at Cannes 1986 for her performance in von Trotta's "Rosa Luxemburg". In the following years, she starred in Schlöndorff's adaptation of Max Frisch's novel "Homo Faber" and in Lars von Trier's "Europa". After several US productions Sukowa returned to Germany for a couple of movies. In 2015, she reunited with von Trotta for the family drama "The Misplaced World", and joined the cast of the US Sci-Fi series "Twelve Monkeys" that shoots in Toronto. She next starred opposite Josef Hader in "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe", directed by Maria Schrader. Her portrayal of Zweig's first wife garnered Sukowa a German Film award nomination for Best Supporting Female Actor.
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