One of cinema’s foremost feminist artists, German auteur Margarethe von Trotta engages fearlessly with political, historical, and social issues to redefine the representation of women onscreen. Emerging from the New German Cinema movement that launched her early collaborators Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff (with whom she codirected THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM), von Trotta went on to become the first woman to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival with MARIANNE AND JULIANE. She’s remained one of contemporary European cinema’s leading voices ever since, bringing searing stories of courageous, visionary women—including Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, twelfth-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, and philosopher Hannah Arendt—to the screen with complexity and conviction.
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta • 1975 • Germany
When Katharina Blum spends the night with an alleged terrorist, her quiet, ordered life falls into ruins. Suddenly a suspect, Katharina is subject to a vicious smear campaign by the police and a ruthless tabloid jou...
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta • 1981 • West Germany
Starring Jutta Lampe, Barbara Sukowa, Rüdiger Vogler
Based on the true story of the Ensslin sisters, this searing drama is arguably the purest expression of Margarethe Von Trotta’s combination of the personal and the political. Juliane (Jut...
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta • 1986 • West Germany
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Daniel Olbrychski, Otto Sander
ROSA LUXEMBURG is Margarethe von Trotta’s remarkable look at one of the most fascinating figures in modern European political history. Having fought for women’s rights in early-twentie...
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta • 2009 • Germany
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung
Hildegard von Bingen was truly a woman ahead of her time. A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed twelfth-century Benedictine nun was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, p...
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta • 2012 • Germany
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Janet McTeer, Axel Milberg
Margarethe von Trotta reteams with her frequent star Barbara Sukowa for a brilliant portrait of the influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist. Arendt’s reporting on the 1961 ...
