Hongkong: Movies against Manipulators – A tribute to Helke Sander

“If they take away your sword, grab the club” – so goes the title of Helke Sander’s foreword to the inaugural issue of Frauen und Film (“Women and Film”) in 1974, the first-ever European journal dedicated to the work of female filmmakers and also the challenges they faced (and continue to face) in a male-dominated “industry”. True to her word, Sander has spent the past six decades fighting relentlessly against patriarchal social structures with whatever tool made available to her. Through her filmmaking, writing, teaching and frontline political activism, Sander launches unflinching critique against the marginalisation of women in both the public and private spheres. Her work has been anchored as much by theory as by lived experience: as a young mother confronting unsympathetic workplace and pedagogic practices at the German Film and Television Academy, as a left-wing activist calling out the misogynist views of her fellow (male) socialists, and as an artist whose ideas and projects were repeatedly overlooked by both the establishment and her peers. She only got to complete her first feature when she was 41. Now 88, Sander remains very active and vocal about gender-based oppression in Germany and beyond. Filmmakers, cinephiles and activists are rediscovering her legacy by revisiting her films (as in the screenings of THE GERMANS AND THEIR MEN – REPORT FROM BONN at the Berlinale in 2024) or through new documentaries (such as Claudia Richarz’s biographical HELKE SANDER: CLEANING HOUSE;or Vibeke Løkkeberg’s TheLong Road to the Director’s Chair, which chronicles The First International Women’s Film Seminar, an event co-organised by Sander and Claudia von Alemann at the Arsenal cinema in 1973).

At once a tribute to Sander and an extension to the conversations and debates the filmmaker kickstarted with her work, “Movies Against Manipulators” is designed to introduce Hong Kong audiences to this pioneering artist through two of her most trail-blazing films as well as a documentary about her life. Presented by Lingnan University’s Centre of Film and Creative Industries and the German Consulate General Hong Kong, with support from Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art and Eaton House, the programme will also host post-screening Zoom talks featuring Helke Sander, Claudia Richarz and Arsenal’s artistic director Stefanie Schulte Strathaus. In another panel, local filmmaker Oliver Chan, activist Sonia Wong and the curator Clarence Tsui will also discuss Sander’s work in the context of Hong Kong cinema. (Clarence Tsui)