Kollwitz - a life of passion

Movie
Original title	Kollwitz - a life of passion
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	2017
length	52 minutes
Rod
Director	Henrike Sandner, ; Yury Winterberg
script	Sonya Winterberg
production	Gunnar Dedio ( LOOKSfilm )

Kollwitz - A Life in Passion is a documentation by Henrike Sandner, Yury Winterberg (director) and Sonya Winterberg (book) about the graphic artist, painter and sculptor Käthe Kollwitz .

content

The documentation portrays the life and artistic development of Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), who became world famous for her political and socially committed art. The reason for the production was her 150th birthday on July 8, 2017. The film is based on the book Kollwitz. Back the biography that Sonya and Yury Winterberg presented in 2015. Käthe Kollwitz was one of the first women to study art in Munich. She already became a recognized artist in the German Empire. The central themes of her art were grief, loss, poverty, hunger and war. Strokes of fate, such as the loss of her son Peter in World War I , shook her life. She processed the grief in her art. The most famous works include the sculptures Mourning Parents at the Vladslo Military Cemetery in Flanders and Mother with Dead Son (1937–1939), an enlarged copy of which is in the Neue Wache in Berlin . In addition to the artistic career, the film also sheds light on the life-affirming and passionate woman. Kollwitz experts, companions and descendants such as the granddaughters of the artist Julia Bohnke-Kollwitz and Jördis Erdmann have their say.

Production information

Kollwitz - A life in passion is a production by LOOKSfilm , producer Gunnar Dedio , on behalf of rbb and ARTE . Sonya Winterberg wrote the screenplay, directed Henrike Sandner and Yury Winterberg, and Dagmar Mielke (rbb television) was responsible for the editing. The film was shot at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum in Cologne , the Kornfeld Gallery in Bern and the St. Etienne Gallery in New York. The film was first broadcast on ARTE on July 5, 2017.

criticism

On the occasion of the first broadcast of the film, Kollwitz - A Life in Passion received wide media coverage. The Berliner Zeitung wrote: “Sonya and Yuri Winterberg, who two years ago published a biography of Kollwitz in book form, place more value on contemporary circumstances than on Käthe Kollwitz's artistic specifics. The effort to describe her not only as a grieving mother who lost her son in the war, but also to emphasize her passions becomes clear. From the diaries, presented by Nina Hoger , speaks a fun-loving woman who was always in love, even after her wedding. A sketch shows the exuberant hangover mood of the Munich 'painters' with whom she studied. "

The Tagesspiegel also emphasized: “The Arte documentation by Henrike Sandner and Yury Winterberg opens up further aspects in the life and work of the icon , who is revered by communists , pacifists and feminists . (...) Statements by Kollwitz experts as well as personal memories of the two granddaughters Julia Bohnke-Kollwitz and Jördis Erdmann - who are amazingly similar to the grandmother - round off the formally unspectacular, but nevertheless inspiring portrait. "

The Badische Zeitung added: “The offspring tell vividly of their memories of the famous grandmother. They depict a woman who went her way undeterred, claimed individual freedom and at the same time was very fond of the family. "

The Frankfurter Rundschau ruled: “And so the portrait is also a film about the times when women took to the streets for their rights for the first time. After her wedding and moving to Berlin, Kollwitz breaks another taboo when she takes up the hunger of the children in Prenzlauer Berg in her pictures; social conditions did not occur in contemporary art . From Emperor Wilhelm II came the demand that art should rise and not descend into the gutter, which is why the Kollwitz pictures from then on bore the honorary designation 'gutter art'. The almost one-hour film is rounded off by its acoustic quality: Christian Redl speaks the comment, Nina Hoger makes the diary entries. "

In the rbb Kulturradio , culture correspondent Maria Ossowski praised a special discovery of the film: "Sonya and Yury Winterberg managed to find the earliest Kollwitz self-portrait in an attic."

The film tip from Deutschlandfunk Kultur said: "The film tells the life and work of this extraordinary woman and shows many previously unknown details of her biography."