Helke Sander

Helke Sander: Cleaning House (2023)

Filmmaker and author Helke Sander is an icon not only of the women's movement, but also of new German cinema. Historical upheavals sometimes only need a small impulse to suddenly set petrified conditions in motion. Helke Sander triggered such a landslide-l ...

Come With Me to the Cinema – The Gregors (2022)

From the 1950s onwards, Erika and Ulrich Gregor brought countless film historical milestones to Berlin and shaped cinema discourse in post-war Germany. A look at the life and work of the couple without whom Arsenal and the Forum wouldn't exist. ...

A German Youth (2015)

At the end of the 1960s the post-war generation began to revolt against their parents. This was a generation disillusioned by anti-communist capitalism and a state apparatus in which they believed they saw fascist tendencies. This generation included journ ...

Mitten im Malestream (2005)

A documentary essay on the 1960s women's liberation movement in Germany and it's developments and conflicts through the following decades. ...

Who is Helene Schwarz? (2005)

Only the chosen few know this woman who started working as a secretary for the German Film and Television Academy (DFFB) on 13 February, 1966. The path of Helen's career is paved with famous names – including that of Wolfgang Petersen, Holger Meins (who ...

Hannelore Mabry – Ein Porträt (2005)

Bungalow (2002)

A young German soldier named Paul goes AWOL and returns to his childhood home in the countryside. Over a few summer days, Paul evades the responsibilities of everyday life and falls in love with his brother's girlfriend, disrupting the lives of everyone in ...

Village (2001)

A woman from a big city moves to a small village near the former border zone between East and West Germany. What is she looking for? What will she encounter? Rural life in the era of globa­li­sa­tion turns into an adven­ture. History lives in objec ...

Muttertier - Muttermensch (1999)

Lucy, who is already human-like, claims that the first humans were mothers: The mother built a nest to secure the child when it became too heavy to carry. This is how she invented the house. She penetrated the dense branches with her voice to maintain cont ...

Liberators Take Liberties, part 1 (1992)

Based on years of research into the mass rapes committed by the Red Army at the end of the Second World War. In the first part of the documentary Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most wo ...

The Germans and Their Men (1990)

A documentary with fictious elements. Ms. Elisabeth (Lieschen) Müller from Austria comes to Bonn, Germany to find herself a man. During the search she investigates the connections between neckties, political power and prostitution, and tries to look for t ...

Love Is the Beginning of All Terror (1984)

Story concerns two friends, Freya and Irmtraut and their relationships with the same man, Traugott, who finds it impossible to choose between the two women. ...

Fräulein Berlin (1984)

Berlin Underground-star Ulrike S. went to the Toronto-Filmfestival and then to New York - to find out something about the film business and also about her own desires, daydreams and nightmares. ...

Der subjektive Faktor (1981)

At the end of the 1960s, a young woman laid the foundation of the women's movement. As well as political initiatives against male dominance, a detailed picture was drawn of society, which established the women's motivation. ...

The All-Around Reduced Personality: Redupers (1978)

Edda Chiemnyjewski, a freelance press photographer and single mother living in 1970s West Berlin, is confronted with the fact that "a cook has no time for affairs of state". She also fails to find a market for the project she has been working on with her w ...

Invisible Adversaries (1977)

Anna, an artist, is obsessed with the invasion of alien doubles bent on total destruction. Her schizophrenia is reflected in the juxtapositions of long movie camera takes with violently edited montages: private with public spaces; black & white with colour ...

Es stirbt allerdings ein jeder, fragt sich nur wie und wie Du gelebt hast (Holger Meins) (1976)

A look into the life of Holger Meins, the German cinematography student who became a revolutionary and a prominent voice in the Vietnam War protest movement. This film is comprised of interviews with his associates. ...

Wochenschau I: Requiem für eine Firma (1969)

A documentary about the events at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb) in November 1968, which led to the termination of the training contracts of 18 students. While Director Heinz Rathsack dictates to his secretary Helene Schwarz the lette ...

Das schwache Geschlecht muss stärker werden (1969)

The weaker sex must become stronger - but how can this be achieved? The central keyword of the six filmmakers Claudia von Alemann, Susanne Beyeler, Erika Runge, Helke Sander, Ula Stöckl and Hanna Laura Klar is: emancipation. Together, they will discuss th ...

Their Newspapers (1968)

Ihre Zeitungen is a political film rooted in the 1968 student campaign against the Springer press group, which controlled popular dailies such as the Berliner Zeitung and the Bild Zeitung. Claiming the latter were manipulating public opinion, the students ...

3000 Houses (1967)

"Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can't agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city. ...

Silvo (1967)

Documentary showing the daily routine of Sander's seven year old son, Silvo. ...

Anmass - Mass (1966)

Analysis of an incident in Nazi Germany involving a man and a jewish woman. ...

The Words of the Chairman (2025)

I was on a ship – this sounds like a novel: I had just embarked for Venezuela on June 2, 1967 as the Shah of Iran was arriving in West Berlin. There were protests, a student was shot, and a new form of opposition movement came into existence. The idea fo ...

Mitten im Malestream (2005)

A documentary essay on the 1960s women's liberation movement in Germany and it's developments and conflicts through the following decades. ...

Hannelore Mabry – Ein Porträt (2005)

Village (2001)

A woman from a big city moves to a small village near the former border zone between East and West Germany. What is she looking for? What will she encounter? Rural life in the era of globa­li­sa­tion turns into an adven­ture. History lives in objec ...

Muttertier - Muttermensch (1999)

Lucy, who is already human-like, claims that the first humans were mothers: The mother built a nest to secure the child when it became too heavy to carry. This is how she invented the house. She penetrated the dense branches with her voice to maintain cont ...

Dazlak – Skinhead (1997)

Jenny is on the road in her film producer's Rolls-Royce, which she has to drive to a film shoot and a wedding. When she gets lost at night, she finds a wrecked car in the ditch and rescues a skinhead. ...

Liberators Take Liberties, part 1 (1992)

Based on years of research into the mass rapes committed by the Red Army at the end of the Second World War. In the first part of the documentary Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most wo ...

The Germans and Their Men (1990)

A documentary with fictious elements. Ms. Elisabeth (Lieschen) Müller from Austria comes to Bonn, Germany to find herself a man. During the search she investigates the connections between neckties, political power and prostitution, and tries to look for t ...

Felix (1988)

Within four episodes ("Er am Ende", "Muss ich aufpassen", "Eva" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" ) are being told adventures of love sick Felix. On Sylt he meets two nymphomaniac women, in Hamburg he meets Eva, a girl who is even more love sick and later he ...

From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services - Part Five (1987)

A sexual assault and its consequences. The 2nd of three self-contained shorts from Helke Sander's series of shorts entitled From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services. ...

From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services – Part Eight (1986)

When an ordinary-looking man tries to buy a mirror in an upscale shop, class conflicts arise. The third part of the short film series. ...

Seven Women, Seven Sins (1986)

Seven Women, Seven Sins (1986) represents a quintessential moment in film history. The women filmmakers invited to direct for the seven sins were amongst the world's most renown: Helke Sander (Gluttony), Bette Gordon (Greed), Maxi Cohen (Anger), Chantal Ak ...

From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services No.1 (1985)

A woman threatens to jump off a crane with her two young children in order to secure affordable housing. ...

Love Is the Beginning of All Terror (1984)

Story concerns two friends, Freya and Irmtraut and their relationships with the same man, Traugott, who finds it impossible to choose between the two women. ...

Der subjektive Faktor (1981)

At the end of the 1960s, a young woman laid the foundation of the women's movement. As well as political initiatives against male dominance, a detailed picture was drawn of society, which established the women's motivation. ...

The All-Around Reduced Personality: Redupers (1978)

Edda Chiemnyjewski, a freelance press photographer and single mother living in 1970s West Berlin, is confronted with the fact that "a cook has no time for affairs of state". She also fails to find a market for the project she has been working on with her w ...

A Bonus for Irene (1971)

In a critique to the Berliner films that depicted labour problems always through masculine lens, Sander changes the point of view. Irene, single mother, works in a washing machine factory and has to deal with discrimination, sexual harassment and lack of s ...

Kinder sind keine Rinder (1970)

The film documents the work of an anti-authoritarian and self-organized school store in Witzlebenstraße in Berlin-Charlottenburg, which emerged as a critique of the development of children's stores. The film shows how the teachers discuss the conversion o ...

The Inextinguishable Fire (1969)

An austere treatise on the military-industrial complex that produces napalm. ...

Break the Power of the Manipulators (1968)

Documentary by Helke Sander, in collaboration with Harun Farocki (among others), about the campaign of the West German New Left against the publishing house Springer, particularly its control and manipulation of the news. ...

Silvo (1967)

Documentary showing the daily routine of Sander's seven year old son, Silvo. ...

Subjectivity (1967)

A concise blast of feminist film making, Sander's first film is a tense yet playful four minute short that dissects a typical urban scene at a bus stop on a busy street in Berlin. ...