Helke Sander

The Kinemathek has preserved and distributed Helke Sander’s films since 1998. Her feminist and political commitment and diverse art forms made her a pioneer of the women’s movement and New German Cinema. In 2016 Sander gave the Kinemathek all the production records on her films and audiovisual documents tracing her political engagement in cinema. ‘Brecht die Macht der Manipulateure’ (1968) was her first politically motivated film. She wanted to dissect “politicians’ gibberish” in order to make others understand it. In the exposé for ‘Macht die Pille frei?’ (1973), Sander sketched her methods and cinematic aesthetic approach for the planned interviews of young workers on the contraceptive pill. A reader’s letter to the NDR broadcasting station shows how controversial discussions about contraception were at the time. Sander’s first essayistic feature film, ‘Die allseitig reduzierte Persönlichkeit – Redupers’ (1978), is a milestone amongst feminist films; her most popular film, ‘Der Beginn aller Schrecken ist Liebe,’ was shown at cinemas in Hamburg for four months in 1984. Sander was again pioneering in 1992 with her documentary ‘BeFreier und Befreite’ in which she dealt with taboo subject matter ‒ the rape of German women by Allied soldiers at the end of the Second World War ‒ and stirred up fierce objections. Helke Sander thoroughly documented these central works and many others, giving her records to the Kinemathek along with all of her production contracts, press clippings and her extensive correspondence (primarily with co-producing broadcasting stations and distributors). The latter illustrates how difficult it was and how much constant effort it took to work as an independent director and producer. (Text: Connie Betz)