A Berlin tribute to filmmaker Ula Stöckl on her 75th birthday
THE SLEEP OF REASON in Berlin’s Moviemento on February 5
To mark the seventy-fifth birthday of the filmmaker Ula Stöckl, the Moviemento cinema in Berlin is screening her most successful film THE SLEEP OF REASON, for which she received Germany’s top film award, the Deutscher Filmpreis, in 1985. The film tells the story of a gynecologist who, based on her research into the negative side-effects of a contraceptive pill, campaigns against the pharmaceutical firm producing it. Within this context, the protagonist, Dr. Dea Jannsen, also finds herself at an existential crossroads.
The screening of THE SLEEP OF REASON on Tuesday will be followed by a discussion with Ula Stöckl chaired by Dr. Laura Méritt.
Februar 5, 2013, 7 p.m.,
Kino Moviemento
Kottbusser Damm 22
D-10967 Berlin
Tel.: +49 (0)30 692 47 85
The director Ula Stöckl was born the daughter of clarinetist Alfons Stöckl and his wife Katharina on February 5, 1938. After completing her schooling, she trained as a secretary and studied languages in Paris and London. In 1963 she enrolled in the newly founded film department at the Ulm School of Design (HfG). In 1968, after producing a number of short films, she set up here own company, Ula Stöckl Filmproduktion. Her graduation film, THE CAT HAS NINE LIVES, is an essayistic exploration of the situation of women in West German society. By this time she had already worked with other important representatives of New German Cinema, such as Alexander Kluge and Edgar Reitz, both signatories to the Obenhausen Manifesto. However, Stöckl took a critical view of the Obenhausen group’s claim that “Papa’s cinema is dead,” in which she saw, as Thomas Elsaesser (in: RWF, 2012) puts it, “a concealed oedipal sentimentality and patriarchal hubris.”
Stöckl’s work as a scriptwriter, director and producer during the 1970s established her reputation as one of Germany’s first independent female filmmakers. Her most important films from this period are A VERY PERFECT COUPLE (1973/74), ERICA’S PASSIONS (1976) and A WOMAN WITH RESPONSIBILITY (1977/78). In 1978 she began her long association with the international women’s film festival Film de Femmes in Paris. She has now made over 20 films and has also acted in films such as Werner Schroeter’s PALERMO OR WOLFSBURG (1979/80) and DAY OF THE IDIOTS (1981).
Stöckl has also worked in theater. In October 1974 she collaborated with Rainer Werner Fassbinder at Frankfurt’s Theater am Turm, directing a production of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Her published production diary from this time suggests that rehearsals with the ensemble of this so-called collaborative theater were extremely lively indeed.
With her avowedly feminist films, Ula Stöckl is regarded as one of the most important representatives of New German Cinema. In 1999 she was awarded the prestigious Konrad Wolf Film Prize for her life’s work. She currently lectures on directing at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
More information:
Kino Moviemento
Ula Stöckl Filmproduktion
Basis-Film Verleih Berlin
Photos: © Ula Stöckl Filmproduktion