Helke Sander
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Contents
Early life and Education
Sander attended a drama school in Hamburg. While married to Finnish writer Markku Lahtela, with whom she had a son, she worked as director at the worker's theatre and for Finnish television. She returned to Berlin in 1965.
From 1966 to 1969, she studied at the newly founded film school 'Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie'. Sanders' work in cinema is very closely linked to her political engagement as a feminist.
Career and activism
In 1968, she co-founded the Aktionsrat zu Befreiung der Frauen (Action Committee on the Liberation of Women). In September 1968, she participated at the conference of the Socialist Students Association (SDS). Her speech, in which she criticized her male colleagues for their sexist attitudes, was yelled at.
Together with Claudia von Aleman, she organized the feminist film conference 'Erste internationale Frauenfilmseminar' which took place in 1973 in Berlin. In 1974, she founded Frauen und Film (journal), the first feminist European film journal, which she edited until 1981.
Her film The All-Around Reduced Personality is among the most important German feminist films of the 1970s. In part this is because it blends techniques of both documentary and fictional film.[1]
Sander's critical eye towards postwar German culture was expanded in her 1984 satire on sexual politics, Love is the Beginning of All Terror.
Her 1992 documentary film, BeFreier und BeFreite (Liberators Take Liberties), examines the mass rape of German women committed by soldiers of the Red Army at the end of World War II. Sander's film was particularly controversial because there were concerns that the film placed too much emphasis on German suffering, thereby lessening guilt for the Holocaust. Defenders of the film argue that Sander's project is a complex reflection on rape as a weapon of war. They argue that the film resists presenting a one-sided depiction of German victimization citing the film's attention to German war crimes and self-reflexive qualities. [2]
Starting in 1981 Sander was a professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg.
Films
Director (28 titles)
- 2005 Mitten im Malestream (documentary)
- 2001 Village (TV documentary)
- 1999 Muttertier - Muttermensch (TV documentary)
- 1997 Dazlak
- 1992 BeFreier und BeFreite (documentary)
- 1989 Die Deutschen und ihre Männer - Bericht aus Bonn (TV documentary)
- 1989 Die Meisen von Frau S. (documentary short)
- 1988 Felix (segment "Muss ich aufpassen?")
- 1987 Nr. 5 - Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste (short)
- 1986 Nr. 8 - Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste (short)
- 1986 Seven Women, Seven Sins (segment "Völlerei? Füttern!")
- 1985 Nr. 1 - Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste (short)
- 1984 Love Is the Beginning of All Terror
- 1983 Die Gedächtnislücke - Filmminiaturen über den alltäglichen Umgang mit Giften (documentary)
- 1981 Der subjektive Faktor
- 1981 Wie geht das Kamel durchs Nadelöhr? (documentary)
- 1978 Die Allseitig reduzierte Persönlichkeit - Redupers
- 1973 Männerbünde (TV documentary)
- 1973 Macht die Pille frei? (TV documentary)
- 1971 Eine Prämie für Irene (TV movie)
- 1970 Kinder sind keine Rinder (documentary short)
- 1969 Das schwache Geschlecht muss stärker werden - Weibergeschichten (TV movie)
- 1968 Die rote Fahne (documentary short)
- 1967/68 Brecht die Macht der Manipulateure! - about the campaign of the student movement against Springer, a German media group. Made for Finnish television. (documentary film)
- 1967 Silvo (documentary short)
- 1967 Subjektitüde (short)
- 1965 Naurukierukka (TV movie)
- 1965 Skorpioni (TV movie)
- 1965 Teatterituokio (TV series)
Writings
- Die Geschichten der drei Damen K., München : Frauenbuchverlag, ISBN 3-88897-123-3
- Oh Lucy : Erzählung, 2. Aufl., München : Kunstmann, 1991, ISBN 3-88897-044-X
References
Further reading
- Julia Knight, Women and the New German Cinema, Verso 1992
- Helke Sander : mit den Füßen auf der Erde, mit dem Kopf in den Wolken, [ed.] Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek e.V. [Red.: Michael Töteberg], Berlin : Freunde der Dt. Kinemathek, 2003 (=Kinemathek Nr. 97), ISBN 3-927876-21-6
