Helke Sander (born January 31, 1937, in Berlin) is a German

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

film director, author, actor, activist, and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

. She is known primarily for her documentary work and contributions to the

women's movement The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for radical and liberal reforms on women's issues created by inequality between men and women. Such issues are women's ...

in the seventies and eighties. Sander's work is characterized by her emphasis of the

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

over the narrative arc. Sander is considered to have started the " new" feminist movement in Germany with her passionate speech at the Socialist German Students Conference. A lot of Sander's work is about portraying female perspectives and showing the everyday struggles that women go through to survive. In her essay "''Feminists and Film (1977)"'', Sander states the motivation for her work: "To put it in other terms: women's most authentic act today—in all areas including the arts—consists not in standardizing and harmonizing the means, but rather in destroying them. Where women are true, they break things." Sander's work is concerned with the breakage of conventional ideas and forms. "

Early life and education

Born in Berlin, Sander was living in Dresden during the firestorm bombing of Dresden during WWII. By the time she graduated from high school, she had been to 15 schools around Germany. She received her

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

in Remscheid in 1957 and went on to study acting at the Ida Ehre School in Hamburg. In 1959, Sander married Finnish writer Markku Lahtela in 1959, and had a son, Silvio Lahtela. After the birth of Silvio, Sander and her family moved to Helsinki where she studied Germanistics and psychology at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

. Sander also directed and performed in

Ernst Toller Ernst Toller (1 December 1893 – 22 May 1939) was a German author, playwright, left-wing politician and revolutionary, known for his Expressionist plays. He served in 1919 for six days as President of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, ...

's play "''Der deutsche Hinkemann and Grass''' "''Noch zehn Minuten bis Buffalo''." On the side, she also taught classes on drama and

improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

. From 1966 to 1969, she studied at the newly founded film school ' Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie'. Sander's work in cinema is very closely linked to her political engagement as a feminist. In 1965 Sander returned to the BRD where she worked at the German Film and Television Academy as a reporter and translator struggling to support herself and her son. She found it frustrating that a woman who works as much as she did still struggled to survive and became active in the Socialist German Student Organization (SDS). Here she would go on to find the "Aktionsrat zur Befreiung der Frauen" (Action Council for the Liberation of Women) in January 1968, which started the movement for Kinderläden which converted shops into

childcare Child care, also known as day care, is the care and supervision of one or more children, typically ranging from three months to 18 years old. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(ren), childcare typica ...

centers.

Career and activism

Sander decided to continue her education at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie in Berlin (Berlin Film and Television Academy) where she would go on to become one of the institutions first ever graduates. Sander became very active in the Students' movement during this time and started the "Aktionsrat zur Befreiung der Frau" (Action Council for the Liberation of Women) in 1968. In 1968, she gave a powerful speech at the SDS (Socialist German Students) conference in Frankfurt where she stressed how women are only truly accepted in society when they "adapt." She asked for the SDS to support the women's political agenda. When her male colleagues tried to ignore this plea and to return to business as usual, Sigrid Rüger hurled her famous tomato, and the second wave of the German women's movement was born. In 1971, Helke Sander organized the women's group 'Brot und Rosen'. The platform centered on the idea that

birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only be ...

was not safe for women. In 1972, Helke Sander continued work on her birth control project. Her film Macht die Pille frei? (Does the Pill Liberate Women?) who she produced with Sarah Schumann, was a campaign against anti-abortion laws. Together with Claudia von Aleman, she organized the feminist film conference 'Erste internationale Frauenfilmseminar' which took place in 1973 in Berlin. This was the first ever European feminist film festival. The festival premiered 40 different European female filmmakers. In 1974, she founded '' Frauen und Film'' (journal), the first feminist European film journal, where she was

chief editor An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's Editing, editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is hel ...

and author until 1982. Frauen und film was the only feminist film journal in Europe at the time and was a hub for analyzing and critiquing sexism in film as well as a forum to discuss female films. Her first full-length film "Die allseitig reduzierte Persönlichkeit – REDUPERS" (The All-Around Reduced Personality) is among the most important German feminist films of the 1970s. The film blends techniques of both documentary and fictional film. The story follows a gifted woman artist in Berlin who faces demands from all aspects of society, emphasizing the struggles women face professionally, financially, politically, and personally. This film helped create "a new filmic language" in which her experimental style and use of

filters Filtration is a physical process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture. Filter, filtering, filters or filtration may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Fil ...

began to take over this new wave of filmmaking. Sander's critical eye towards postwar German culture was expanded in her 1984 satire on sexual politics, "Der Beginn aller Schrecken ist Liebe" (Love is the Beginning of All Terror) in which she stars. The story is about a man who comes between two women that present a female perspective full of wit and irony. In 1985, through an election process, Helke Sander joined the West Berlin Academy of Arts. Sander would later file a resignation from the Academy citing "misogyny, nepotism, and corruption". In 1989 Sander,

Margarethe von Trotta Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942)Hans Helmut Prinzler, ''Chronik des deutschen Films, 1895–1994'' (Stuttgart and Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1995), p. 149. is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been ref ...

, Christel Buschmann and

Helma Sanders-Brahms Helma Sanders-Brahms (20 November 1940 – 27 May 2014) was a German film director, screenwriter and producer. Biography Helma Sanders was born on 20 November 1940 in Emden, Germany. She attended a school for acting in Hannover from 1960 to 1 ...

produced . ''Bericht aus Bonn'' (''The Germans and their Men – Report from Bonn'') was a docu-fiction film produced in 1989 in which Sander investigates the impact of feminist thought after twenty years of women's activism; male parliamentarians, ministerial officials, the federal Chancellor and the man in the street are all interrogated. Starting in 1981 Sander was a professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, an Academy of Fine Arts, in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. She left the institution in 2001. Helke Sander was honored by the in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in 2003. A retrospective of her collected works in film was shown in their Arsenal Cinema. Sander is also an author and publicist for "Die Geschichten der drei Damen K" (The Three Women K) where stories about irony within heterosexual relationships are told from a female perspective. In 2005 Sander made ''Mitten im Malestream'' (''In the Midst of the Malestream'') in which she reviews and investigates the second wave of German feminism that she helped kickstart back in 1968. This film explores the central conflicts and questions that seem to be left unanswered. Sander's entire career of activism can be summarized throughout this film, but it also offers more than just a summary and pushes the boundaries of experimental film.

Filters and films

Helke Sander's work is characterized by the use of filters, which function as a visual cue to remind the audience of the subjectivity presented. The use of the filter draws attention to the properties of a documentary and the ideology being communicated, allowing the audience an awareness of the

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

being delivered. Sander's use of filters ushered in a new wave of experimental filmmaking, where the visual style of the film became equally as important as the subject itself.

''Redupers: The All-Round Reduced Personality'' (1977)

''Redupers'' is a documentary about the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

, the border between East and West Berlin, and the central character's relationship to Berlin . Through authorial inscription, Helke Sander portrays the central character of the film, a woman who must come to terms with the political and private sphere of being a woman against the backdrop of unrest. Sander also focuses on photographer Edda Chiemnyjewski's efforts. Feminist interpretations ''Redupers'' posit that the Berlin Wall functions not only as a representation of the divide geographically, but also as a stand-in for the psychic and sexual differences between men and women.

''The Subjective Factor'' (1980)

''The Subjective Factor'' chronicles the origins of the women's movement and the Berlin student movement, set against the backdrop of a commune, and deals with issues of

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. A ...

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

, and

phallocentrism Phallocentrism is the ideology that the phallus, or male sexual organ, is the central element in the organization of the social world. Phallocentrism has been analyzed in literary criticism, psychoanalysis and psychology, linguistics, medicine and ...

. Sander's portrayal shows

Leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politi ...

males run the commune while women are relegated to

domestic Domestic may refer to: In the home * Anything relating to the human home or family ** A domestic animal, one that has undergone domestication ** A domestic appliance, or home appliance ** A domestic partnership ** Domestic science, sometimes cal ...

duties and are denied rights to speak out. The film is set during the late sixties and consists of a combination of fictional footage and

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...

footage. The use of filter in the film draws attention to the properties of the documentary itself, the views that are presented. Sander's use of the female voice over in ''The Subjective Factor'' was a marker of progressive film making at the time.

''Liberators Take Liberties: War, Rapes, Children'' (1992)

Her 1992 documentary film, ' (Liberators Take Liberties), examines the

mass rape Mass sexual assault is the collective sexual assault of women, men and sometimes children, in public by groups. Typically acting under the protective cover of large gatherings, victims have reported being groped, stripped, beaten, bitten, penetr ...

of German women committed by soldiers of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Sander's film was particularly controversial because there were concerns that the film placed too much emphasis on German suffering, thereby lessening guilt for the

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. Defenders of the film argue that Sander's project is a complex reflection on rape as a weapon of war. They argue that the film resists presenting a one-sided depiction of German victimization citing the film's attention to German war crimes and

self-reflexive Self-reference is a concept that involves referring to oneself or one's own attributes, characteristics, or actions. It can occur in language, logic, mathematics, philosophy, and other fields. In natural or formal languages, self-reference oc ...

qualities. This documentary won the Nestor Almendros Prize in the 1993 Human Rights Festival. The film situated Sander as a researcher historian contributing to history, because Sander uncovered and catalogued events previously unvisited. This documentary uses an arrangement of interviews to create an overall thematic message. Questions have been raised regarding Sander's use of filters in this documentary, especially as it relates to the portrayal of

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

qualities, which were overemphasized within the interviews.

Filmography

Director (30 titles) * 2005: ''Mitten im Malestream'' n Midst of the Malestream(documentary) ** This documentary is a history of the second wave of the German women's movement. Sander examines

abortion rights Abortion-rights movements, also self-styled as pro-choice movements, are movements that advocate for legal access to induced abortion services, including elective abortion. They seek to represent and support women who wish to terminate their p ...

, the birth strike, and the politics of motherhood. * 2001: ''Village'' (TV documentary) * 1998: ''Muttertier – Muttermensch'' nimal Mother – Human Mother(TV documentary) ** This documentary chronicled and examined the maternal role of women. * 1997: ''Dazlak'' * 1992: ' (documentary) * 1992: ''Krieg und sexuelle Gewalt'' ar and Sexual Violence(documentary) ** This documentary was a report on

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary Human settlement, settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for in ...

s in

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

following the Serbian and Bosnian War. * 1989: ''Die Deutschen und ihre Männer – Bericht aus Bonn'' he Germans and their Men – Report from Bonn(TV documentary) ** Examines the impact of post-women's activism and feminist thought on the male German public. Men from several social classes are interviewed. * 1989: ''Die Meisen von Frau S.'' (documentary short) * 1988: ' (segment ''"Muss ich aufpassen?"'') * 1987: ''Nr. 5 – Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste'' (short) * 1986: ''Nr. 8 – Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste'' (short) * 1986: ''Seven Women, Seven Sins'' (segment ''"Völlerei? Füttern!"'') * 1985: ''Nr. 1 – Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste'' (short) * 1984: ''Der Beginn aller Schrecken ist Liebe'' ove Is the Beginning of All Terror** Helke Sander takes the main role in this satire. The film revolves around the plot of a man between two women. * 1983: ''Die Gedächtnislücke – Filmminiaturen über den alltäglichen Umgang mit Giften'' (documentary) * 1981: ''Der subjektive Faktor'' he Subjective Factor* 1981: ''Wie geht das Kamel durchs Nadelöhr?'' (documentary) * 1978: ' (''Die allseitig reduzierte Persönlichkeit – Redupers'') * 1973: ''Männerbünde'' (TV documentary) * 1973: ''Macht die Pille frei?'' (TV documentary) * 1971: ''Eine Prämie für Irene'' Reward for Irene(TV film) ** Examined the double exploitation of women; their lives in family and in the factory. * 1970: ''Kinder sind keine Rinder'' hildren are Not Cattle(documentary short) ** Documented the treatment of children in a childcare center. * 1969: ''Das schwache Geschlecht muss stärker werden – Weibergeschichten'' (TV film) * 1968: ''Die rote Fahne'' (documentary short) * 1967/68: ''Brecht die Macht der Manipulateure!'' (documentary film) ** Campaign of the student movement against

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

, a German media group. Made for

Finnish television Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

. * 1967: ''Silvo'' (documentary short) * 1967: ''Subjektitüde'' (short) * 1965: ''Naurukierukka'' (TV film) * 1965: ''Skorpioni'' (TV film) * 1965: ''Teatterituokio'' (TV series)

Awards and nominations

1985– Sander wins the

Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

award for best short film with her short "Nr. 1 – Aus Berichten der Wach- und Patrouillendienste" at the Berlin International Film Festival. Helke Sander was honored by the Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art (Berlin) in 2003. A retrospective of her collected works in film was shown in their Arsenal Cinema.

Writings

*''Die Geschichten der drei Damen K.'', München : Frauenbuchverlag, *''Oh Lucy : Erzählung'', 2. Aufl., München : Kunstmann, 1991,

References

External links

Personal Website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sander, Helke 1937 births Living people Writers from Berlin Mass media people from Berlin German women film directors German women writers German socialist feminists Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund members Film directors from Berlin Academic staff of the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg