Co-presented by The MUFF Society,
a community that champions women in film.
From Bonnie Parker to Patty Hearst, women have been robbing banks with cunning and callousness. GOETHE FILMS investigates female criminal gumption from Tykwer’s 1998 classic RUN LOLA RUN that launched Franka Potente’s international career to last year’s one-shot Berlin wonder VICTORIA.
WANJA (Germany 2015, 87 min), directed by Carolina Hellsgård, with Anne Ratte-Polle, Nele Trebs & Robert Viktor Minich
Nominated Best First Feature Award, Berlin International Film Festival 2015
The former bank robber Wanja is released from a long prison sentence. As her feelings of loneliness escalate, Wanja sets out to find work and hereby a new identity. Against all odds she lands an internship at a horse race track. In the stable she gets to know the troubled teenager Emma, and a tentative friendship develops between the two women. When Emma slips deeper into drug abuse, Wanja decides to rescue her.
"Energetic and enigmatic, an unflinching portrayal of a woman that is far from perfect, with admirable feminist vibes." - Cinecola
Carolina Hellsgård works as a writer, editor and director in Berlin. She studied experimental media design at the Berlin University of Arts, and film directing and screenwriting at Cal Arts in Los Angeles. Her films have screened at numerous international film festivals including the Berlinale, Montreal World Film Festival, Clermont Ferrand International Short Film Festival, Films de Femmes and the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. Her short film LÄUFER was nominated for the German Critics’ Award 2013.
All GOETHE FILMS are open to audiences 18+
Part of the Goethe-Institut's focus on German Film
