Marianne & Juliane

Two sisters both fight for women's rights. Juliane is a journalist and Marianne a terrorist. When Marianne is jailed, Juliane feels obligated to help her despite their differing views on how to live.

The screenplay is a fictionalized account of the true lives of Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin. Gudrun, a member of the Red Army Faction, was found dead in her prison cell in Stammheim in 1977. Although this story is not well-known outside of Germany, it does illustrate the tensions of Germany during the Cold War.

This film marked the first time that Margarethe von Trotta worked with Barbara Sukowa. They would go on to work on six more films together. One could fairly argue that von Trotta launched Sukowa's career, leading her to work with such noted directors as von Trier, Cimino, Cronenberg and others.

"Marianne and Juliane" was well received and became a platform for Von Trotta as a director of the new German cinema. Though she was not as highly recognized as her male counterparts, the study of the more human side of contemporary political issues (like terrorism in this case) became her focus. Anyone who is interested in German films of the 70s-90s would do well to seek her out, as her work overlapped nicely with her contemporaries.