German 281: Introduction to German Film

German Women Filmmakers (with Monika Treut)

International film has received some of its most original impulses from German filmmakers. Today there are proportionally more women directors in Germany than in any other film-making country and their work has been extremely influential. The course examines the broad spectrum of German cinema through the category of gender, it examines feminist interventions in all periods of German filmmaking, and explores the important social, political, and historical issues German women's films have raised. We will analyze films by such diverse women filmmakers as the controversial Leni Riefenstahl and the socialist and proto-feminist Leontine Sagan of the pre-war period. The films by women filmmakers who worked within and to some degree against the New German Cinema from the seventies on will be the focus in the second part of the course. Directors studied may include Margarethe von Trotta, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Ulrike Ottinger, Helke Sander, Monika Treut, Doris Doerrie, and Heike Misselwitz.