Born in Berlin in 1942, she studied German and Roman languages and literature in Munich and in Paris. She took part in the New German Cinema Movement first as an actress, in films of directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Herbert Achternbusch, and also as a writer and director. She worked on her former husband Volker Schlondorff’s scripts and was the co-director of the film adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum” (1978). She directed, among others, the films “Marianne and Juliane” (1981), winner of the Golden Lion at Venice International Film Festival, “Rosa Luxemburg” (1986), “Three Sisters” (1988), “L’africana” (1990), “The Promise” (1994), “The Women of Rosenstrasse” (2003, 43rd Mostra), “Hannah Arendt” (2012, 36th Mostra), “The Misplaced World” (2015) and “Searching for Ingmar Bergman” (2018, 42nd Mostra).
