Duration: 1hr 52min
In Germany, the elder Frau Traude Krueger gives piano classes in a prison for a few prisoners and the security guard Mütze. When she sees the rebel and aggressive Jenny Von Loeben playing piano, she immediately identifies her potential and offers to teach her for a competition. Frau Krueger finds that Jenny was a prodigy when she was a child; abused when she was a teenager and has been imprisoned for murdering and decapitating a man. Along the period they work together preparing for the exhibition, Frau Krueger discloses secrets about her love in World War II while the self-destructive Jenny has four minutes of glory and recognition of her talent.
4.00pm: Satin rouge (Red Satin) 2001
directed by Raja Amari
Duration: 1hr 35min
An engaging film against the well-known clichés of women in the Maghrebian context.
“And if I was really… a liberated woman, would that bother you?”
Satin Rouge is a meditation on the transformative powers of self-expression. A widowed Tunisian housewife, tired of living in the shadow of her daughter and dead husband, finds herself drawn to the seductive, but socially unacceptable, belly dance cabaret down the street. From then on, nothing is out of the question, not even a bizarre love triangle.
“The only problem with being a woman filmmaker and having a woman as the film’s subject is that the woman is often seen as the victim and is soft-spoken. They don’t have very strong issues. They’re not pushy, they don’t go far enough and I really want to push the envelope, to go outside of that and really tackle difficult subjects and not be so sweet and soft-spoken about it. I think that’s the tendency for women filmmakers making films about women.” Raja Amari, director
Special jury prize at the Milan Film Festival, Winner New Director’s Showcase Award at the Seattle International Film Festival
6.00pm: Aung San Suu Kyi, (Lady of No Fear) 2010
directed by Anne Gyrithe Bonne
duration: 64min
We know Aung San Suu Kyi as “a golden bird in a cage “; she is a valuable icon representing freedom and democracy of which the suppressed population of Burma much hopes for. In the West she stands out as a symbol of peace and reconciliation, she has been awarded countless prizes for her effort, among them the Nobel Peace Prize. But who is the person and woman behind it all? In this film her close family, friends and close colleagues tell about a daughter, a wife, a friend, a mother, a rebel – that early in life met deep grief and deprivation.
The Military Dictatorship has on several occasions offered her the opportunity to leave the country. But why does Aung San Suu Kyi voluntarily choose to stay in her captivity instead of going into exile?
