AMPAS ADDS WOMEN DIRECTORS: With our commitment to reviewing all new releases written and/or directed by women, FF2 Media now plays an important role in breaking down barriers. AMPAS invited 683 new members this year, 49 of whom are female directors. Who are they? What are their stories? We already know them, and we are here to tell you!
Margarethe von Trotta is a German film director known for The Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, which she co-wrote and co-directed. Their film was considered to be “the most successful German film of the mid-1970s. She also made Coup de Grâce in 1976 before branching off into her own career.
Trotta’s first solo film was Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages, or The Second Awakening of Christa Klages. Her second feature film was Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness in 1979 and she continued to make films, including Sheer Madness and Rosenstrasse. In 2001, she was the President of the Jury at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival. She is a Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and remains an important personality of German cinema.
In 2012, von Trotta co-wrote Hannah Arendt, the story of a German-Jewish academic.
Excerpt of FF2 Media review of Hannah Arendt from May 28, 2013:
Barbara Sukowa stars as the German-born political philosopher best-known today for her books on 20th Century totalitarianism. Von Trotta’s film (co-written with Pam Katz) focuses on her attempts to introduce nuance into discussions of the Holocaust when she covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. The result was an uproar that still endures today. (JLH: 4/5) HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Read full review: https://ff2media.azurewebsites.net/thehotpinkpen/2013/05/28/hannah-arendt/
Read more on Margarethe von Trotta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarethe_von_Trotta
Photo Credit: PAP/EPA/ALESSANDRO DI MEO