Helke Sander: Cleaning House

A Film by Claudia Richarz, D 2023, 82 min

Circumstances can be changed, through insight and by thinking for oneself: Why is there what there is?

Helke Sander

Helke Sander - persistent, seductive and revolutionary – is part of the world’s cultural heritage. Because she constantly had stones thrown in her path, she is still cleaning up.

Luise Pusch, linguist and author

Helke Sander was a true pioneer of feminism and a fighter for equality in our industry. She formulated political goals when many of us weren't even thinking about them. It is great that there is now this film about her – it was overdue. And to tell her life story along the theme of cleaning up, I think is brilliant.

Maren Kroymann, actress, political satirist and singer

Filmmaker and author Helke Sander is an icon not only of the women’s movement, but also of new German cinema. Historical upheavals sometimes require only a small impetus to suddenly break up ossified conditions and set things in motion. Many years ago, Helke Sander triggered such a dramatic shift in Germany.

Helke belongs to the filmmakers who changed cinema through their own inimitable style. That this important figure of German cinema is not mentioned outside certain circles is regrettable. Claudia Richarz’s sisterly and profound portrait creates a perspective that should make anyone interested in revolutionary, feminist cinema immediately seek out Sanders’s films. For where there is historical consciousness, there are lessons for the future, in their relative successes and failures. Richarz thoroughly follows Sander as she attempts to find the right question, in her life and work, finding many answers and even more questions embodied in the life of a historic figure in German cinema who is finally getting the recognition she deserves. One of the greatest women who ever lived, Rosa Luxemburg, once said, “You can only really understand people when you love them.” Here there is understanding, here there is love.

Giancarlo M. Sandoval

Filmlöwin

Watching the film was life changing. I do not exaggerate. Claudia Richarz’s extremely well-researched and conveyed documentary brought tears to my eyes, just thinking about all that Helke has done for women, cinema and the world.

Lynne Sachs

Experimental Documentary Film Maker and Poet

Wonderful, sensitive and intimate movie. Great, precise images. A little gem that also depicts a piece of German history.

Dietmar Krause

Cameraman, Munich

I like the intimate and vulnerable approach to Sander, which also shows her as a person and not just in the role of filmmaker and feminist. I really liked the holistic approach; the beach scene with her son, followed by the digression into her own war experiences. What this generation had to go through! Helke Sander’s unwavering form, whether young or now in her later years, her stoic manner is very impressive. She appears to the outside world as if she were keeping a secret.

Maxa Zoller

Festival Director, IFFF

Claudia Richarz’s movie is overwhelmingly good. It is such a beautiful, honorable, and deeply honest portrayal. Not only the content, but also the style, the “feel” of the movie has a lot of Helke Sander. And the historical material is fascinating. It seems to me to be exactly the right way to capture her person, her life’s work and her life (as far as such a thing is possible). At first I just wanted to take a quick look and couldn’t get away!

Prof. Kirsten L. Belgum

Department of Germanic Studies, University of Texas, Austin