Oct 5, 2020Mary Pickford — the most powerful woman in Hollywood who in the end wanted to burn her fameWhen starting to research Mary Pickford, I’ve come across a lot of superlatives: The most powerful woman in Hollywood. One of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood. One of the most popular actresses of the 1910s and 1920s. “Queen of the Movies” She invented modern screen acting. The first movie…Mary Pickford4 min readMary Pickford4 min read
Aug 25, 2020Germaine Dulac vs. Luis Buñuel & Salvador Dali — The Origin of Surrealist CinemaUn Chien Andalou (1929) by Buñuel & Dali is considered to be the first surrealist film and — if you check the wikipedia entry — was analysed by a vast number of influential film critics. Ken Dancyger has argued that Un Chien Andalou might be the genesis of the filmmaking…Surrealism4 min readSurrealism4 min read
Aug 22, 2020Pearl White, Helen Holmes — Meet the Daredevil Serial Action Queens of the 1910sInspired by Michelle Muldoon’s interview about her western Last Stand to Nowhere, I decided to dig deeper into early female role models I’d like to identify with in cinema. I came across the names Pearl White, Helen Holmes, and Helen Gibson. …History4 min readHistory4 min read
Jul 9, 2020Rape in Film — What I learned producing a film centering around abuseCan you make a survival thriller from a female filmmaker’s point of view? — I spent a lot of time researching the portrayal of rape in movies during the development and pre-production of my film ‘3 Lives’. I personally have been in situations of sexual violence two times in my life. After a few years, I had the urge to put my experience into…Film8 min readFilm8 min read
Jun 30, 2020Join me on my round-the-world cruise during the COVID19 lockdownI’m planning to visit more than 50 countries. Virtually. Actually, I re-visit them in writing, and I hope you’ll join me on the journey. But first things first, who am I? And why should you tag along? I’m a German filmmaker who directed a lot of shorts and several feature…Round The World5 min readRound The World5 min read
Jun 27, 2020Lois Weber — Once the Highest Paid Director in all of HollywoodYou read that right, she wasn’t the highest paid female director, once she even outranked her male peers like D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, making Lois Weber the first American female director, as well as the highest paid director in Hollywood for a time. Life Before Directing Weber was born in…Film4 min readFilm4 min read
Jun 16, 2020Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird vs. Rocky — Or: The Importance of the Female PerspectiveLast night my partner and I were looking for a film to watch. I wanted to watch Greta Gerwig’s new film ‘Little Women’ after reading and hearing so much praise about it. I’ve been a huge fan of her work ever since I saw her first solo directorial adventure ‘Ladybird’…Ladybird5 min readLadybird5 min read
May 14, 2020Tazuko Sakane & Kinuyo Tanaka — The First Two Female Directors in JapanWhen I was thinking about my next blog post, a lot of western filmmakers came to mind. Actually, not a lot, but enough. In case you don’t know this, I lived in South East Asia for 6 years, so I decided to dive into Asian filmmakers instead. …Filmmaker4 min readFilmmaker4 min read