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Let us now praise famous women” could serve as a pithy summation of the work of Margarethe Von Trotta.

With her representations of women of the past – feminists and philosophers, visionaries and revolutionaries, homegrown terrorists and everyday heroines – the veteran German filmmaker has carved out a unique place in cinematic history.

Ahead of the world premiere of Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey Into the Desert in Berlinale competition Feb. 19, von Trotta shared her insights into some of her most iconic onscreen feminists, the real-life women who inspired them and the actresses who brought them to life.

Read her comments below.

Marianne & Juliane

The 1981 drama, which won von Trotta the Golden Lion in Venice, follows two German sisters who both fight for women’s rights but take very different paths. Juliane (Jutta Lampe) becomes a journalist. Marianne (Barbara Sukowa), a terrorist. Inspired by real-life siblings Gudrun and Christiane Ensslin.

The beginning was not the women themselves,...

If there’s one take-away from Forget About Nick, the first English-language film by German director Margarethe von Trotta, it’s that nothing much has changed in the 20 years since The First Wives Club rang a familiar bell for middle-aged female audiences. Successful men still trade their spouses in for younger models (here, the titular Nick’s new girlfriend is literally a model) and their discarded wives are left weeping, soul-searching and/or plotting revenge.

In this traditionally shot international comedy, Von Trotta and screenwriter Pamela Katz, who co-scripted the director’s historical films Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt, have an engagingly modern (though hardly radical)...

Pamela Katz, Carrie Welch with Margarethe von Trotta on the Return To Montauk set Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Volker Schlöndorff, Oscar-winning director for The Tin Drum, based on Günter Grass's novel Die Blechtrommel, invited me to join him on the set for his latest film, Return To Montauk (Rückkehr Nach Montauk), while he was shooting scenes with Stellan Skarsgård and Susanne Wolff at the New York Public Library. The film also stars Nina Hoss and Niels Arestrup (brilliant in Diplomacy with André Dussollier). Screenwriter Colm Tóibín, along with Margarethe von Trotta and her co-writer Pam Katz (The Other Woman (Die Andere Frau), Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt) were up on the steps.

Margarethe von Trotta with Volker Schlöndorff Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Von Trotta co-wrote and co-directed The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum with Volker, based on Heinrich Böll's novel and he directed her in their script for Coup de Grâce.

Five brave films have made Tiff stand out in a very particular way for me this year. Usually I, among hordes of others, am busiest chasing down the next Academy Award contenders, the high priced U.S. acquisitions or the major sleeper of the festival. Those films are repeatedly covered by the trades, and my Rights Roundup will keep a running talley on all announced pickups worldwide of all the films.

These other brave films are the films which motivate our best filmmakers to create works of art in the first place of filmmaking on my charts.

I already covered Annemarie Jacir's newest film, When I Saw You (Isa: The Match Factory), about a young Palestinian boy in 1967 who, when placed in a Jordanian camp with his mother, insists on returning to his home to find his father. Annemarie is a beautifully determined Jordanian filmmaker who will make films which reflect our world's diversity, speaking out for women and children who would otherwise have no voice. Although there are several films dealing with these refugee camps of Palestinians which were supposed to be temporary but have remained in countries such as Lebanon and Jordan. for three generations, further marginalizing the dispossessed, this one stands out for me because it shows the woman and child in their own private spheres, marginalizing the male politics of the situation. The child's refusal to accept artificial barriers and borders triumphs in the end. That is the only hope for world unity.

Its opposite is realized in Costa Gavras' new film Capital, where money and corporate interests know no borders, and the socialist dream is turned on its head. This film was supported by the French; When I Saw You was supported by Abu Dhabi film funds. Both are important views of life in two vastly different segments of the world today. Will either see wide distribution? The Match Factory who has the most films in Toronto of any sales agent is selling the former and Elle Driver is selling the latter. We'll watch the sales on these two issue oriented dramas' sales.

Another film The Match Factory is handling is Hannah Arendt, directed by Margarethe von Trotta, another filmmaker who is fearless in facing deeply philosophical and important issue. Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest political analysts of the Xx° century, who coined the phrase, "the banality of evil" when she covered the Jerusalem trial of Adolph Eichmann in 1961, and, in so doing, lost many of her best friends, is here portrayed by Barbara Sukowa, who revives the 60s in the New York German Jewish intellectual milieu, reminding us of the days when the New School was tackling tough issues and New Yorker magazine was articulating issues of great importance which today are just as urgent as they were then. The nature of totalitarianism includes victims and oppressors in a cycle of silence which in turn, creates evil because no one speaks up to protest. It took Von Trotta 10 years to make this film in spite of her winning the Venice Fest's Golden Lion for Marianne and Juliane in 1981, a story sharing the theme that von Trotta uses throughout her works, that “the personal is political", or Barbara Sukowa's winning Best Actress for in Venice for the same movie and Best Actress at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival for her work in von Trotta's film Rosa Luxemburg. The New York of this story ("Paradise" as the most wonderful Barbara Sukowa named it in Hannah Arendt) is so well captured because Barbara Sukowa is not only the consummate German as seen in her roles in Fassbinder's films but is also a longtime New Yorker, married to the artist Robert Longo. In addition to those credentials, the scriptwriter is Pamela Katz who wrote Von Trotta's Rosenstrasse is also a New Yorker married to the German Dp Florian Ballhaus (The Devil Wears Prada), the son of the legendary Michael Ballhaus. They all live in the same New York that they inherited from the very people they recreate in the film!

And yet another brave film about a brave woman is The Patience Stone (Isa: Le Pacte) by Atik Rahimi which was just picked up for U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics which will ignite a lot more sales for Le Pacte and which puts it into the Best Foreign Language Academy Award company for 2012. So far, Brazil is the only buyer registered on Cinando. Watch the film on Cinando! It is pure poetry. Piers Handling himself recommended it and it was the buzz film of the festival. It is a movie which Muslim fundamentalists would never allow to be made; and they will hate it.

The issue of religious fundamentalism was also treated with great delicacy in Mira Nair's story of cross cultural belief systems at odds. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Isa: K5 International who also sold the great sleeper, The Visitors) stars Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber and Kiefer Sutherland. Riz Ahmed who also starred in Trishna is someone who you will want to see again, and I hope we see him soon! He graduated Oxford University with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and later enrolled into London's Central School of Speech and Drama. He's quoted in IMDb as saying, "[Oxford University] is socially unrepresentative about the real world. The first person I met, I asked to borrow a phone charger. She looked at me, laughed in my face, and told me with no irony or malice that I looked just like Ali G." Ironically, he reminds me of Gordon Warnicke who played Omar in My Beautiful Laundrette and who is British born of South American and German ancestry (and who is probably Jewish). IFC snapped up North American rights to this outstanding film in which Pakistan and Wall Street unite and divide as a smart young Pakistani enters the Hallowed Halls of the Ivy League, Big Business on Wall Street and High Society via Romance until September 11, 2001 shatters the illusions of peace and prosperity we all had been harboring.

There are many more brave and wonderful films which screened this year at Tiff, but for me, these were the ones I was honored to catch. I hope my readers get the chance to see these!

As a historical drama, Margarethe von Trotta's Vision is easy to appreciate because of its competent execution. Unfortunately, the film might leave enthusiasts of medieval history very hungry because it favours some angles more than others that are more relevant.

The latest film by German director Margarethe von Trotta (Rosenstrasse) follows Hildegard von Bingen (Barbara Sukowa), a German nun best known for her musical compositions, her knowledge in herbal medicine and her religious "visions". In 1106, at the age of eight, Hildegard is sent by her parents at the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. Under the supervision of mother Jutta (Lena Stolze), Hildegard studies herbal medicine, reading, writing and Christianity. Thirty years later, mother Jutta dies and Hildegard is elected as the female abbot by her sisters.

Because she believes she occasionally has "visions" sent by God, Hildegard describes them to brother Volmar (Heino Ferch). With the authorization of the pope,...

Once in a while, it's good to be reminded that the Second World War is not just about explosions, but also about people living far from the fronts.

Since the end of the Second World War, Ruth (Jutta Lampe), a German-born secular-minded Jewish woman, has been living in New York City. On the day of her husband's death, she suddenly becomes orthodox-minded. Her relatives, especially her daughter Hannah (Maria Schrader), don't understand why Ruth expects them to stay away from their day job for 30 days or even to stop picking up the phone. In order to understand how Ruth is so shaken, Hannah decides to explore her mom's past after Ruth's cousin (Carola Regnier) had shown her a picture. In this picture, we see a young Ruth standing next to the gentile woman who saved her from the horrors of the Holocaust.

This is why Hannah decides to go to...

BERLIN -- Veteran talent agent Erna Baumbauer, locally known as the Queen of Bavaria for her benevolent reign over the German film industry, will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at this year's German Film Awards, known as the Lolas. Baumbauer has been a central force in the German film scene for decades, discovering and promoting some of the country's biggest stars, including Bruno Ganz (Downfall), Otto Sander (Wings of Desire), Maximillian Schell (Judgement at Nuremberg) and Katja Riemann (Rosenstrasse). At 87, Baumbauer isn't slowing down. She still runs her eponymous agency, one of Germany's largest, out of Munich.

• Following up on a Screen Daily piece written moments after the Berlin film festival, we’ve decided to go with that list and make a full breakdown of the pictures that we might find at this year’s Cannes film festival. At this point its just speculation - but hell its fun to speculate and after what many consider a long wait for quality projects – I think that buyers and sellers might find themselves in a real frenzy at the Croisette. With the opening of what will be a massive blockbuster hit (hear those cash registers ring) in Ron Howard’s The Da Vinci Code, and by the looks of the names there might be plenty of items to look forward to in the Autumn and be sure there will be plenty of leftovers for both Venice & Toronto (remember: Ang Lee avoided traffic and showcased Brokeback Mountain at Venice.

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TORONTO -- Buyers screening films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival continued to cherry pick among the available features Wednesday. IFC Films reached a pact to take all U.S. rights to Canadian helmer Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World, while Samuel Goldwyn Films drove down a deal for North American rights to Rosenstrasse, by German helmer Margarethe von Trotta. Acquisitions execs coming into Toronto last week agreed that any pickups would focus on "wild card" films arriving at the festival without the benefit of advance buzz. However, a number of indie companies -- including Miramax Films, United Artists, Sony Pictures Classics, Newmarket Films, IFC and Goldwyn -- have dug up projects thus far.