section Documentary Film Competition

A Woman

  • Jeanine Meerapfel
  • DE, AR
  • 2021
  • 104 Min

Mosaics of memory: In her latest film, director Jeanine Meerapfel delves into her mother's life story. Taking an intimate approach, she remembers a woman for whom the sensation of homelessness was a permanent condition. At the same time, this is the story of an entire generation’s experience of exile in the 20th century.

France, Germany, Holland and Argentina; countries where the director's mother spent part of her life. The film takes the viewer back to these places and, with the help of photos, diary entries and archive films, recalls the life of Marie Louise Chatelaine Meerapfel. The result is a deeply emotional and poignant film in the form of a documentary essay in which the author allows her very own aesthetic form of remembering to come into being; one that, with its fault lines and incoherences, leaves room for the imagination. The film combines a personal biography with contemporary history: The story of a woman, her experiences as she takes flight and later finds herself in exile, is thus representative of the life stories of many women of that era.


14.6. 19.00 Hans-Otto-Theater, followed by a discussion with Jeanine Meerapfel, director
18.6. 19.00 MS Goldberg, followed by a discussion with Jeanine Meerapfel, director

Jeanine Meerapfel welcomes you to the screening of her film Eine Frau on 18.6 at 19.00 in the MS Goldberg and tells you something about her film in advance.



Credits

original title Eine Frau

international title A Woman

german title Eine Frau

JFBB section Documentary Film Competition

  • director Jeanine Meerapfel

country/countries DE, AR

year 2021

duration 104 Min


Portrait of Jeanine Meerapfel

Jeanine Meerapfel

BIO In her works, director Jeanine Meerapfel not only deals with her own German-Argentinean family biography, but also finds a language through her films with which she gives expression to feelings of un-/belonging and questions about her own identity and origins. She was born in 1943 as the daughter of German-Jewish emigrants in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires. After completing her studies in journalism, she came to Germany in 1964. She studied at the Institute for Film Design ("Institut für Filmgestaltung") in Ulm, among others with Alexander Kluge, who is still one of the most influential representatives of New German Cinema. Against the backdrop of current political and social debates, Jeanine Meerapfel's films are still highly topical today: themes such as migration, experiences of flight and exile find their way into her films, as does the critical examination of the acute dangers of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. The films are political, but not sober political cinema. Rather, they are very personal examinations of history, which always have a highly emotional relationship to Meerapfel's own family history. This year, the Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg is dedicating a tribute to the director and current president of the Academy of Arts ("Akademie der Künste") and is showing seven of her works, which were made between 1980 and today.