Margarethe von Trotta facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Margarethe von Trotta
von Trotta in 2007
Born	21 February 1942 Berlin, Germany
Occupation	Film director screenwriter actress
Years active	1968–present
Movement	New German Cinema
Spouse(s)	Jürgen Moeller (1964–1968) Volker Schlöndorff (1971–1991)
Children	Felix Moeller

Margarethe von Trotta (born 21 February 1942, in Berlin, Germany) is a famous German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She is known as a "leading force" in the New German Cinema movement. This was a time when German filmmakers created new and exciting movies.

Von Trotta's films have won many international awards. She was married to and worked with director Volker Schlöndorff. Even though they were a successful team, Margarethe wanted to create her own films. She became "Germany's most important female film director." She is known for telling stories from a woman's point of view.

Many people call von Trotta "the world's leading feminist filmmaker." This means her films often aim to show women in new and strong ways. Her movies explore friendships between women, family bonds, and relationships between women and men. They often have political settings too. However, she does not like it when people call her films "women's films."

She has won many important awards. These include a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and two David di Donatello Awards. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the European Film Awards.

Early Life and Acting Career

Margarethe von Trotta was born in Berlin. Her mother was Elisabeth von Trotta, and her father was the painter Alfred Roloff. After World War II, she and her mother moved to Düsseldorf. Margarethe had a very close relationship with her mother. She says this bond helped her understand friendships and support between women. This theme is often seen in her films.

In the 1960s, von Trotta moved to Paris. There, she worked with groups of filmmakers. She helped write scripts and co-directed short films.

At first, von Trotta was an actress. She appeared in early films by directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff. She once said that before she saw films by Ingmar Bergman and Alfred Hitchcock, she thought movies were just for fun. But after seeing their films, she realized cinema could be an art form. She decided that filmmaking was what she wanted to do. In the 1960s, it was hard for women to become directors. So, she started acting to get into the film industry. This helped her become known before she started directing.

Becoming a Film Director

Margarethe von Trotta's first experience working on a film was for Volker Schlöndorff's The Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach (1971). She also acted in this movie.

In 1975, she and Schlöndorff wrote and directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum together. This film was about political problems in Germany. In this movie, von Trotta showed how women can feel trapped in a world mostly run by men. She focused on directing the actors, while Schlöndorff handled the technical parts of the film. They worked well together. This film was very successful in Germany in the mid-1970s. After one more film where she helped write, von Trotta started her own directing career.

Her first film as a solo director was The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978). This movie was about a young woman who becomes involved in political action. The film showed themes that would become common in von Trotta's work. These included strong female friendships and the effects of violence. The story was based on a real event about a teacher named Margit Czenki.

In 2001, she was the head of the jury at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival. She is now a film professor at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee. She remains an important person in German cinema.

The Sister Films

Margarethe von Trotta's second film was Sisters, or the Balance of Happiness (1979). She then made two more films that became known as her "trilogy of sister films." These were Marianne and Juliane (1981) and Three Sisters (1988). A writer named Barbara Quart said that these films are about women trying to find completeness in their lives. The women in these movies grew up in traditional times but did not want to follow old rules for women. These three films explore the strong bonds between sisters in a changing world. This theme connects von Trotta's work to the New German Cinema movement.

Sisters, or The Balance of Happiness explores the deep connections between two sisters, Maria and Anna. It also includes a third person who affects their lives. This film won the Grand Prix Award at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival in 1981.

Marianne and Juliane (1981), also called The German Sisters, is about dealing with the loss of a sister. Marianne and Juliane become much closer after Marianne is sent to prison for her radical actions. The characters are based on real-life sisters, Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin. This made the film very interesting to critics who focus on women's issues. The movie uses many flashbacks, jumping between the present, childhood, and other times. This makes the story non-linear. The Nazi era in Germany influences both Marianne and Juliane, but in different ways.

Margarethe von Trotta (January 2013)

A key idea in Marianne and Juliane and other von Trotta films is "the personal is political." This means that personal experiences are connected to bigger political issues. In Marianne's prison cell, the sisters talk about their personal and political differences. Marianne's past experiences led to her political actions. Her political actions then affect her personal life. For example, she goes to prison, her husband dies, and her son is in danger. This film caused a lot of discussion. Some people thought it was too understanding of Marianne's character, who was a terrorist. This film won many awards at the Venice Film Festival in 1981, including the Golden Lion Award. Von Trotta winning the Golden Lion was a big achievement for women in film. A female director had not won such a major award since 1938.

Love and Fear (1988), also known as Three Sisters, is von Trotta's sixth feature film. It focuses on three sisters: Olga, Masha, and Irina. Through these women, von Trotta shares her ideas about women's place in society. She also shows how traditional politics affect their lives. This film, like her others, shows sisters who want to find meaning in their lives. Their search for love helps them deal with difficult parts of life. Compared to her other "sister films," Love and Fear focuses more on feelings and sadness. It deals less with politics and more with von Trotta's view of differences between men and women. This film was nominated for the Palme d'Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1988.

Sheer Madness

In Sheer Madness (1983), von Trotta again explores women's feelings through the friendship between two women, Ruth and Olga. Some people thought this film made it seem like von Trotta disliked men. Von Trotta won an award for Sheer Madness at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1983. The film was also nominated for the Golden Bear award that same year.

Rosa Luxemburg

Von Trotta's 1986 film, Rosa Luxemburg, is about the real-life feminist and socialist Rosa Luxemburg. The film looks at both her public life as a revolutionary and her private life as a woman. Barbara Sukowa, who acts in many of von Trotta's films, won the Best Actress award at Cannes in 1986 for playing Rosa Luxemburg. Through this film, von Trotta returns to the theme of "the political and the personal." She gives equal attention to Luxemburg's personal life and her political life. Rosa Luxemburg was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. It also won an award in Germany in 1987.

Rosenstrasse

Looking at some of von Trotta's more recent films, the idea of female bonds and emotions is still very important. For example, in her 2003 film, Rosenstrasse, she uses strong emotions to show the characters' feelings. This film focuses on mother-daughter relationships. It shows three different connections between mothers and daughters. This film expands the idea of what a "mother" means, beyond just being biological.

Vision

The film Vision (2009) tells the true story of Hildegard von Bingen. Hildegard was a nun who fought against the rules of the church. She is another example of von Trotta's strong, independent female characters. In an interview, von Trotta explained why she chose Hildegard for her film. She said she looks for women from the past who are similar to her own ideas. She is always drawn to women who have to fight for their lives and freedom. She feels this is a main theme in all her films.

In Vision, there is a deep bond between Hildegard and a young nun named Richardis. Von Trotta said this was not a romantic love. She explained that Hildegard saw Richardis as a daughter, friend, and mother all at once. It was a very deep and special love.

Von Trotta wanted to show Hildegard as a real person, not just a saint. She said she likes to show strong women who also have weak moments. She wants to show how they fought to find their own way and overcame challenges. Hildegard von Bingen dreamed of starting her own abbey. She faced many difficulties. Her weakest moments were when Richardis was taken away from her. Von Trotta found these moments of extreme emotion beautiful and surprising.

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (2012) shows an important part of the life of German-Jewish thinker Hannah Arendt. Von Trotta was asked if Arendt was similar to the women she had shown in past films. Von Trotta explained that real-life characters from her films, like Rosa Luxemburg, fought for what they believed was right. Luxemburg wanted more equality, and Gudrun Ensslin wanted to change humanity. Von Trotta said that Hannah Arendt fits her idea of important historical women. Arendt's main goal was to understand, and von Trotta feels this applies to her own films too.

Television Work

Filmmakers often face problems with money. In the mid-1980s, many German films stopped production because of budget cuts. Some female filmmakers chose to work in media education. But Margarethe von Trotta decided to make TV shows and films to keep working. Even though it meant less artistic freedom, she wanted to stay in the film industry.

Her first TV project was Winterkind [de] (1997). This was the first time she directed a work without writing the script herself. She then made three more TV films: At Fifty Men Kiss Differently [de] (1997), Days of Darkness [de] (1997), and Anniversaries [de] (2000). Through her TV work, von Trotta learned how to keep her unique artistic style as an "independent filmmaker."

Personal Life

In 1964, Margarethe von Trotta married Jürgen Moeller. They had one son, Felix Moeller, who is now a documentary director. They divorced in 1968. Von Trotta then married German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff. They raised Felix together and worked on film projects.

Felix Moeller made a film in 2018 called Sympathisanten: Unser Deutscher Herbst. This film shows how von Trotta and Schlöndorff worked together in Germany during the politically difficult 1970s.

Filmography

Feature films

Television films and series

Actress

Awards and Nominations

See also

In Spanish: Margarethe von Trotta para niños