Survival and Rebellion: Recovering Ula Stöckl’s Feminist Film Strategies

Abstract

Renewed attention to German feminist filmmaker Ula Stöckl, and her ongoing cinematic creativity, affords us insight into more than four decades of German Cinema. Moreover, such an analysis can assist us in recovering significant in-sights regarding gender in New German Cinema (both in terms of its production and its reception), and in establishing connections of feminist film’s relevance in and across generations and national contexts. The current lack of consideration of Stöckl’s work is characteristic of difficulties in studying women’s film and is un-fortunate, because Stöckl’s work is consistently cutting edge and of remarkable cinematic quality; her work was characteristic for New German Cinema while also participating in the creation of German feminist film. Discussing prominent themes in her work at the intersections with German history, politics, and culture, I review Stöckl’s work, with particular emphasis on two specific films, through the lens of contemporary discussions about memory and inter-generational feminist identity.