Film Screening
"Rosa Luxemburg" by MARGARETHE VON TROTTA

Margarethe & Barbara

Thu, 10/05/2017
6:30 PM TIFF Bell Lightbox Toronto

... & Hannah & Rosa & Marianne & Juliane. New German Cinema director Margarethe von Trotta has been working with actress Barbara Sukowa for over three decades, portraying women who think, question and rebel. GOETHE FILMS presents MARIANNE & JULIANE (1981), ROSA LUXEMBURG (1986) and HANNAH ARENDT (2012) as a conversation about female resilience.

ROSA LUXEMBURG (Germany 1986, 123 min, on 16mm!), directed by Margarethe von Trotta, with Barbara Sukowa, Daniel Olbrychski, Otto Sander & Jürgen Holtz

Best Actress, Cannes Film Festival 1986
2 German Film Awards 1986

At the beginning of the 20th century, Polish-born German revolutionary and agitator Rosa Luxemburg became the most outspoken advocate for humanitarian Marxism and a symbolic figure of the workers' movement. Trials, imprisonment and political upheavals characterized the last years of her life, until her assassination in 1919. This dramatization of the life and political struggles of Rosa Luxemburg poignantly explores the inner motives for political action, civil courage and the pursuit of justice.


(German trailer)

"Von Trotta's film, with a fine, soberly intelligent performance by Barbara Sukowa (the seductive star of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Lola), is a first-rate introduction to an extremely complicated personality." — The New York Times

Margarethe von Trotta (born 1942 in Berlin) ranks among the most important female directors in German cinema and has been called "the world’s leading feminist filmmaker." She also made a name for herself as an actress, starring in films by well known German directors such as Fassbinder and Schlöndorff. Her films are concerned with relationships between and among women (sisters, best friends), as well as with relationships between women and men, often in political settings. Her best-known films include: "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" (1975, co-directed with Volker Schlöndorff), "The Second Awakening of Christa Klages" (1977), "Marianne and Juliane" ("Die Bleierne Zeit", 1981), "Rosa Luxemburg" (1985), and "Hannah Arendt" (2012). She is currently in production of the comedy "The Odd Couple" (2017, with Katja Riemann and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal) about two women living together who have nothing in common except the same ex-husband. She is also working on a documentary about Ingmar Bergman, taking a closer look at his life and exploring his film legacy with Bergman's closest collaborators.

Barbara Sukowa (born 1950 in Bremen) studied acting at Berlin's Max-Reinhardt-Seminar. Sukowa made her breakthrough in front of the camera in the role of Mieze in Fassbinder's TV adaptation of "Berlin Alexanderplatz". She then played the title role of the small town prostitute "Lola" in Fassbinder's trilogy about the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany. Sukowa starred working with Margarethe von Trotta on "Marianne and Julianne", for which she received the German Film Award in 1982. She won the Golden Palm at Cannes 1986 for her performance in von Trotta's "Rosa Luxemburg". In the following years, she starred in Schlöndorff's adaptation of Max Frisch's novel "Homo Faber" and in Lars von Trier's "Europa". After several US productions Sukowa returned to Germany for a couple of movies. In 2015, she reunited with von Trotta for the family drama "The Misplaced World", and joined the cast of the US Sci-Fi series "Twelve Monkeys". She next starred opposite Josef Hader in "Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe", directed by Maria Schrader. Her portrayal of Zweig's first wife garnered Sukowa a German Film award nomination for Best Supporting Female Actor.

All GOETHE FILMS are open to audience 18+

Part of the Goethe-Institut’s focus on German Film

Series co-presented by the MUFF Society

10/03 | 6:30pm | "Marianne and Juliane" by Margarethe von Trotta
10/12 | 6:30pm | "Hannah Arendt" by Margarethe von Trotta