Maria Speth Film Retrospective

(En) gendering Precarity

Maria Speth is an award-winning director who is often associated with the "Berlin school" of German filmmaking.  As part of her visit to the University of Waterloo, sponsored by the Waterloo Centre for German Studies, three of her most important films will be shown in April. Professor Alice Kuzniar will conduct post-screening discussions, and Maria Speth will be present at the final screening on April 21st. (She will also be conducting a workshop that you may find of interest.)

All of the films will be shown with English subtitles. The screenings all start at 4:30pm. Pay parking is available at East Campus Hall.

Tuesday April 7th

• Nine Lives/9 Leben (2011) - In Germany 9000 youths of very different backgrounds are permanently homeless. This documentary film portrays several young people out of different milieus and with very different reasons for having no abode. In a neutral studio setting, meant to avoid clichés and help focus on their personalities. (filmportal.de)

Tuesday April 14th

• Daughters/Töchter (2014) - Agnes, a teacher from the Hessian provinces, has come to Berlin to identify a dead girl who might be Lydia, her runaway daughter. It turns out not to be Lydia, but Agnes stays in the city anyway. Still frantically looking, she comes a young stray called Ines who no longer leaves her side. (filmportal.de)

Tuesday April 21st - Maria Speth in attendance

• Madonnas/Madonnen (2007) - Wanted for theft, Rita flees to Belgium with her baby. She manages to find her real father there, whom she never met, but he has a new wife and children and cannot take her in. The Belgian police arrest her and deport her to Germany, where she is sentenced to a long prison term. Rita′s other four children live with her mother Isabella during this time, but she is too busy working, and the oldest daughter Fanny has to take on the responsibility for them. When Rita is released from prison, she takes back her children. With the aid of Marc, a US soldier stationed in Germany, she develops something like normal family life. But when Marc is to be transferred back to America, Rita′s entire life is thrown off balance. (filmportal.de)

Download the poster and pass it along!

Read the Goethe-Institut's Interview with Maria Speth

Co-presented by the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo and the Goethe-Institut. Maria Speth is a guest of the Goethe-Institut.