In 1960 the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped in Argentina by secret service and brought to trial in Israel. For The New Yorker magazine, German-American writer and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who had to emigrate from Germany in 1933 and settled in New York in 1941, travelled as a correspondent for this trial. She was surprised when the accused criminal turns out to be a mediocre bureaucrat rather than a monster or criminal genius.
A biopic about the philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) and her observation and evaluation of the trial against Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Condensed into a dynamic narrative portrait of an exceptional intellectual of the 20th century, the film also impresses with its intimate portrayals of the New York milieu of German-Jewish emigrants at the beginning of the 1960s.
© Goethe-Institut
Margarethe von Trotta
After completing drama school and engagements on the various German theatre stages, Margarethe von Trotta was seen in many roles in New German Film from 1967, including films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Herbert Achternbusch and Volker Schlöndorff, with whom she also wrote and directed several films.
Her first independent work as film director was "The Second Awakening of Christa Klages" (1978). This was followed by controversial films such as “The Bleierne Zeit” (1981), “Rosa Luxemburg” (1986), “The Promise” (1995). Again and again in her films it is about reflecting on the past, individual as well as political and social, and attempting to critically examine it.
© Concorde Filmverleih
Barbara Sukowa
Like many stars born in the post-war period, Barbara Sukowa (*1950 in Bremen), celebrated her breakthrough with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. As the muse of the filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta, she embodied the RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin in Die bleierne Zeit (1981), the German-Polish socialist of the same name in Rosa Luxemburg (1986), the philosophical theorist Hannah Arendt (2012) and in Vision – From The Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009) even a saint. - But the triple mother and wife of multimedia artist Robert Longo had a second career in New York. As a singer in classical concerts as well as with her own rock band and flying visits to cool films like John Turturros Romance & Cigarette (2005), she says she finally learned "the smile" in the USA.
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