“Looking Back to the Present” – film program 7
With Helke Sander (director), Pia Frankenberg (director), Bärbel Freund (director), Elfi Mikesch (director), Angelika Levi (director), Lilly Grote (director), Ute Aurand (director), Monika Vogel (director), Sibylle Tiedemann (director)
 

From feminist beginnings at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin with Helke Sander to the private punk film of its new artistic director Angelika Levi, this program brings together seven shorts by nine women who have studied or taught at the DFFB. The program is complemented by a film by Pia Frankenberg, who does not come from the DFFB, but whose perspective was also significant for the filmmaking of her time.
 

‘Subjektitüde’
FRG 1966, directed by Helke Sander, FRG 1966, 5 min, OmeU
 

An encounter between two people takes place on the street, and their stream of thoughts is rendered audible to the audience. In her first film, Helke Sander transforms the task of making a short on the theme of ‘boy meets girl’ into a magical miniature.
 

‘Familiengruft – ein Liebesgedicht an meine Mutter’ (Family Crypt – A Love Poem to My Mother)
FRG 1983, directed by Maria Lang, 12 min, OmeU
 

A family portrait in spoken words and observations of everyday tasks. The father skins a rabbit and the mother mixes dough. Interspersed with photo albums, poetry, and fragments of two biographies.
 

‘Der Anschlag’ (The Attack)
FRG 1984, directed by Pia Frankenberg, 9 min, OV 
 

A slap out of the blue is received by the victim with appreciation. The man, who is hit by a woman, interprets it as an act of anarchy and finds meaning in it. Then they both go out into the street and declare slapping to be an art form.
 

‘Anziehen’ (Getting Dressed)
FRG 1979, directed by Ute Aurand, Bärbel Freund, Monika Vogel, Sibylle Tiedemann, 9 min, OmeU
 

Four women film each other getting dressed in this four-part film. The motive for making the film was to work with a Bolex camera. A protected space is created, to which only women have access – and in which the female gaze is directed towards the female body.
 

‘Schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft’ (Silently Engrossed in Conversation)
FRG 1980, directed by Ute Aurand, 8 min, OmeU
 

Ute Aurand constructs a small cinematic poem from subjective street scenes, mirrored faces, and the city passing by, as well as naked female bodies underwater, creating an essay made from observed images.
 

‘Das Frühstück der Hyäne’ (The Hyena’s Breakfast)
FRG 1986, directed by Elfi Mikesch, 23 min, OmeU
 

Perhaps her name is Maria: A woman with blonde curls listens to a caller in her New York apartment, moving between the couch and the kitchen floor, getting deeper and deeper into her surreal fantasies, in which she lustfully tries out different roles.
 

‘Ariel’
FRG 1984, directed by Angelika Levi, Lilly Grote, 12 min, OV
 

The coal stove is filled, the carnivorous plant is fed, and a ghost is in the room. Sand is vacuumed up in the room, and at the beginning, rats take over the perspective. The home feels eerie in this experiment on the sickbed, somewhere between punk and Kafka.