Coinciding with the release of her latest film, “Searching for Ingmar Bergman,” the Quad will celebrate the work of Margarethe von Trotta with a retrospective. In a Women and Hollywood exclusive, the NYC theater has announced “Margarethe von Trotta: The Political Is Personal” will take place November 2-8. The series will feature the director’s early work, including imported prints of “Rosa Luxemburg,” “The Second Awakening of Christa Klages,” and “Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness,” as well as films starring von Trotta, such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “The American Soldier.”
Von Trotta came of age in post-WWII Berlin, but after moving to France she immersed herself in the films of the French New Wave. She eventually returned to West Germany and initially acted in films of the New German Cinema. “But her own creative instincts would take hold, as would the impulse to be the change that she wanted to see,” the Quad details, “namely, become a female filmmaker in a movement that was short on them.” At the time, her only peer was “Under the Beach’s Cobbles” director Helma Sanders-Brahms.
Von Trotta started writing screenplays with then-husband Volker Schlöndorff, and collaborated with him on projects as assistant director or co-director. The duo directed “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum,” which centers on a woman who faces public scrutiny after sleeping with a suspected terrorist.
1978’s “The Second Awakening of Christa Klages,” a tale of a desperate woman who robs a bank and flees to Portugal when the heist goes sideways, marked von Trotta’s solo directorial debut. Often political, Von Trotta’s films “foreground women’s stories and explore the nature of female identity and the multi-faceted relationships between women, never shying away from tough emotional terrain — and in the process providing dramatic banquets for some of Germany’s best actresses.”
“Searching for Ingmar Bergman,” a documentary about one of von Trotta’s biggest cinematic influences, will also open exclusively at the Quad on November 2.
“Margarethe von Trotta: The Political Is Personal’s” full lineup is below, courtesy of the Quad. Check out the theater’s website for tickets and more information.
The American Soldier
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1970, West Germany, 80m, 35mm
Beware of a Holy Whore
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1971, West Germany/Italy, 103m, 35mm
Coup de Grâce (Der Fangschuss)
Volker Schlöndorff, 1976, France/West Germany, 97m, 35mm
Gods of the Plague
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1970, West Germany, 91m, 35mm
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
Volker Schlöndorff/Margarethe von Trotta, 1975, West Germany, 106m, 35mm
Marianne & Juliane (aka The German Sisters)
Margarethe von Trotta, 1981, West Germany, 106m, DCP
Rosa Luxemburg
Margarethe von Trotta, 1986, Czechoslovakia/West Germany, 122m, 35mm
The Second Awakening of Christa Klages
Margarethe von Trotta, 1978, West Germany, 88m, 35mm
Sheer Madness (aka Friends and Husbands)
Margarethe von Trotta, 1983, West Germany/France, 105m, 35mm
Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness
Margarethe von Trotta, 1979, West Germany, 95m, 35mm
