SchspIN

An Actress's Thoughts

6. June 2024
by SchspIN
2 Comments

Curtain Call for Stage Mothers

Eleven years ago, the second text of this blog was about theatre: A Flower on the Stage (22.1.13) I have also looked at the productions invited to the Theatertreffen for several years (click!), but the last time was in 2016 – high time to do that again, and perhaps also one or two theatre/schedule analyses.

Today it’s going to be about a different theatre topic

Balancing Family and Career in the World of Theatre

  • An Association
  • A Split
  • A Family Seal
  • A Pilot Survey
  • A Toolbox
  • A Catalogue of Measures
  • An Aside

An Association

I am very happy about the Bühnenmütter (Stage Mothers), an association founded in 2021 that supports and networks ‘stage artists with children’ and ‘advocates family-friendly structures in theatres and cultural institutions’.

Their website will be redesigned soon – if the volunteer activists find the time or receive unexpected financial support (and hopefully they will also incorporate a search function!). But in terms of content, the site is a wonderful source for all those who work on public stages or in the independent scene. And the new logo is already there.

A Split

The stage mothers describe the coexistence of family and stage career as doing a split (click! in German),

“because a split is something that builds up unpleasant tension, it stings, pulls, then hurts and finally threatens to tear. A split can overwhelm us. And excessive demands can cause lasting damage if they are exaggerated.”

Continue Reading →

22. March 2024
by SchspIN
1 Comment

Have a Listen to the Radio

Who do we listen to on the Radio?

Some time ago, in the early days of my analytical work, I analysed radio programmes from time to time. One programme called ‘Arrested by the police – and then what?’ in the public broadcasting children’s programme Kakadu from 2.11.13 caught my attention, you can read about it here: Tis Early Practice Only… . From 2013 to 15, I also analyzed the radio feature IM GESPRÄCH (In Conversation), which is broadcast on Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m. on public radio Deutschlandfunk Kultur. If you don’t know the programme, it’s DLF’s main programme with audience participation. There is a presenter and one or two experts who discuss a topic and the audience is involved by phone call or email contribution. I noticed that a lot of male and very few female experts were invited. I’ve written four articles about this so far:

In the first year I wrote to the editors of the programme about it. It’s not a problem if there are all-male programmes, but again and again? DKultur said at the time about its choice of guests:

“We don’t keep any statistics on the gender of the studio guests we invite to our Saturday programme “Radiofeuilleton im Gespräch”. The interviewees are selected on the basis of their expertise in the respective topic; gender parity or quotas play just as little a role as they do for the listeners who speak on the programme.”

If the gender of the guests didn’t matter, why was there such a clear male preponderance?

A talk in Cologne

Last week I was invited to give a keynote speech at the Founders Talk, an event organised by the Mediengründerzentrum NRW (but it was all in German). My topic was From the Fringe to Key Positions – Women in the Media Industry. And since I didn’t just want to talk about film and television, I once again checked the radio programme and its guest lists.

Belinde Ruth Stieve at the Founders Talk from MGZ NRW. Photo Hojabr Riahi

Good news from DLF Kultur Radiofeuilleton IM GESPRÄCH.

As you can see from the following diagram: the proportion of female experts in the programme is more than 40 % in 2023! Strictly speaking, it is even 46.4 %.

That’s a huge leap if we compare it with the years 2013 to 2015. Great. What happened? Has the editorial team started to consciously counteract the traditional male bias? Have they started “statistics on the gender of the studio guests”? Does gender parity now play a role? Or how did this major change come about?

I don’t know. And the editors of the programme have not yet responded to my questions and follow-up questions. If they do, I will of course add it here.

Will the positive trend actually continue in the not-so-new year 2024? Hm, it doesn’t look like that at the moment. The next diagram shows the female–male guest shares for the first ten programmes in 2024 (35 : 65) – and as a comparison for the same period in 2023 (52.6 : 47.4). This year has not started so well:

Until I get an answer from the editors, I can only speculate. So for example, let’s take a look at the programmes with just one guest. Most of the time, this single guest was a man.

Could we conclude from this that the “empty guest chairs” were gradually filled with female experts? Probably. But only partially. Because in 2023, there were still seven programmes with just one guest, six of which were men and one of which was a woman.

A bold hypothesis – which I cannot verify as long as the programme team does not contact me – would be that there is also a Covid side effect. In the sense that fewer guests came to the Berlin studio and more guests may have joined the Saturday programme from home or their offices. So it was easier to book two guests for one programme. Basically, I could record this statistically, I would ‘only’ have to listen to all 200 podcasts of the 2013 to 15 and 2023 programmes, at least the first ten minutes in which the guests are introduced, usually with the addition “joined by phone” or “from the Essen studio” or “opposite me” or something like that. Well, that’s a task for another day. Here is an overview of the guest numbers for the four years:

Programmes Guests Guests / Programme
2013 52 90 1,7
2014 52 88 1,7
2015 50 87 1,7
2023 52 97 1,9

In 2013-15, there was an average of 1.7 guests in a programme, rising to 1.9 in 2023. But okay, drawing grand conclusions from four years is as risky as claiming that my analyses, articles and emails ten years ago led to the editorial team taking measures for more balanced guest lists. So let’s not go there.

Instead, here are two figures showing the proportions of women and men among the experts for all programmes in the four years. For orientation: both columns of a year do not have to add up to 100%, but the aim should be to achieve similar proportions. Take the figures for 2014: there were female experts in only a third of all programmes, whereas male experts spoke into microphones in almost all programmes. And yes, that does matter. Because when we hear men speaking on every topic and only very rarely women, it does something to us. Some will consider women to be less competent or less broadly positioned as a whole. And see men as the ones who know their stuff and always have something to say.

A public broadcaster, a programme presumably financed with taxpayers’ money, has a particular responsibility in this respect (although I don’t even know whether the guests receive a fee, but that’s another topic).

The next image shows that in 2023 the proportion of women and men among the guests was almost equal – this in contrast to 2013-15. Male participation had its lowest value in 2023 at 80.8% and its highest value in 2014 at 98.1%. Female participation ranges from 38.4% (2014) to 69.2% (2023). This should give the editorial team something to think about:

Here, too, is the data for the first ten programmes in 2024 and 2023, which last year reached 90% of both female and male experts. I think it’s good that the figure isn’t 100, because it’s perfectly fine for there to be programmes in which only some or only others have their say. But this year the two column tops are far apart, separated by 30 percentage points:

This shows what we’ve already seen, 2024 is off to a really bad start. Will the rest of the year be better? I’m afraid not, 2024 won’t come close to the 2023 final result. It’s just a feeling, but I know this from many studies, for example the 6-departments-checks for the tiresome TATORT: the proportion of women in the vast majority of departments analyzed decreases over the course of a year, and in the first half of the year it is usually clearly higher than at the end of the year.

And what were the Topics?

Listing all the topics that were discussed in the 52 programmes last year, as well as all the topics that perhaps surprisingly didn’t make it into this Saturday format, is beyond the scope of today’s article. Instead, I have compared all the programmes that had only female experts or only male experts at the microphone and see stereotypes here and diversity there. Stereotypes regarding the topics to which only women were invited and thematic diversity in the programmes with experts:

IN CONVERSATION, female guests only 2023:

  • Book tips. The power of poetry.
  • Adoption. How to foster children. Entitlement to a daycare place. Parent-child relationship. Inheritance without dispute. Clearing out the family home.
  • Loneliness.
  • A new start.

Male guests only:

  • Health checks. Sport for children. Smoking. Back pain. Corona, flu & Co.
  • Driving at old age.
  • Living sustainability. Energy guzzler internet. Energy transition from below. Rubbish.
  • Online fraud. Digital payment.
  • Proverbs. How does music touch people?
  • 4-day working week.
  • The radio CEO talking to listeners.

Who presented the Programmes?

Yes, I also recorded the data on this, both in the past and present. But that too – perhaps in connection with the topics – is something for another day. Maybe by then I’ll have received an answer from the editorial team and learnt how the moderators are involved in finding topics and inviting guests. Who knows.

On a side note: I recently heard German actor and singer Tom Schilling on the weekday version of IM GESPRÄCH – the programme only lasts an hour and there is only one guest at a time, without audience participation. I noticed that he only ever talked about male directors, male actor colleagues and male musicians and male band members and I waited for the presenter Britta Bürger to ask if he didn’t (or did also) work with women. But she didn’t ask. Hadn’t she even noticed?

Concluding Remarks

In 2023, the majority of DLF IM GESPRÄCH Saturday programmes had two guests, and of these a majority had one man and one woman. The proportion of women among the 97 experts in 52 programmes was 46.4 %. Just under 70 % of all programmes had women as guests, a good 80 % men. Compared to the very male-dominated programmes in 2013, 14 and 15, these are encouraging changes. Only the programmes with only female or only male experts are questionable; two female experts or one female expert alone were predominantly booked for children and parenting topics, whereas the programmes with one or two male experts show a much greater variety overall, from health, environmental and digitalisation topics to the 4-day working week.

Listening tips (with me)

Since today’s text is about Deutschlandradio Kultur, here is a reference to three contributions in which I was involved as a guest (speaking German):

I described here how the first interview came about here, the starting point was a programme on political books without any women writers. And a subsequent call from Tarik Ahmia from DLF’s Background Culture and Politics editorial team, who accompanied the preparation and recording of my commentary. Many thanks to him (and of course Gesa Ufer and Max Oppel) for their interest in my side project.

29. February 2024
by SchspIN
Comments Off on How are Things with the Film Family?

How are Things with the Film Family?

On 19 February 24, the congress Empowered for Equality took place on the occasion of 10 years of Pro Quote Regie / Pro Quote Film during the 74th Berlin Film Festival. I was asked to give a keynote speech and also attend the official launch of the ffd PQF family-friendly filming website I created. Here is a shortened version of my 20-minute talk:

Last year, I was commissioned by Pro Quote Film to develop a catalogue of measures on the subject of family-friendly filming. I think it was supposed to be eight pages. But I soon realised that it didn’t make much sense that way and suggested creating a website instead, because it’s easier to expand, you can fit more on it and incorporate links. It was a bit daft to suggest that, as the project then got bigger and longer! But now the site is actually finished and, if everything works out, it will be launched a little later today.

How are Things with the Film Family?

We always say that we are one big film family and that families look after their folk. That’s very nice.

I’ll start – sitnce many of you have probably been sitting here for a very long time or have been somewhere else before where you’ve only received input – with a little quiz. Who is this, does anybody know?

(a photo)

Audience: some names are called out, among them “Katharine Hepburn”

That’s right, Katharine Hepburn. And who is this?

(a second photo)

Voices from the Audience: “Cary Grant!”

Yes. And who is this?

(a third photo)

Audience: (no reaction)

That’s Priscilla Lane. And there is a reason why you didn’t know that. I’ll come to that in a bit.

Three Hollywood Stars

left to right: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane. publicity shots, common licence.

What these three have in common is that their careers in the film industry overlapped, and they also worked together in some films. Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, for example, did HOLIDAY, BRINGING UP BABY and PHILADELPHIA STORY together – three films that have really silly German titles, so I won’t mention them. Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane were in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. They get married at the beginning, maybe if you’ve seen the film you’ll remember her now? A very funny, talented actress.

But that’s not the only thing the three of them have in common… Who knows what I’m getting at? Yes, compatibility of family and film career or incompatibility of family and film career!

Katharine Hepburn was already in her late fifties when her partner Spencer Tracy, who was overweight, an alcoholic and had heart problems, became really ill. She interrupted her career that moment on and looked after him and cared for him for many years. In the end, she nursed him back to health to the extent that he was able to make one last film with her: GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER? – and then he passed away. She was able to come back and get her career going again, she won three of her four Oscars after this family time off and then continued filming, also of course because she already had a great career before her caring gap years.

Cary Grant, maybe you know this, maybe you don’t, – his mother died when he was eleven. And when he was 30, he learnt that his mother hadn’t died at all, but that his father had her committed to a lunatic asylum, and I deliberately call it that. At the time, this was done without a doctor’s signature, the husband could simply sign her up. As I said, Grant was 30, and when his father died, he did everything he could to get his mother out of there. She was living in England, he was working in the USA, and he looked after her from afar for the rest of his life, visiting her regularly and looking after her. But that is not his only family aspect. When he was 62, he and his fourth wife Dyan Cannone had their first and his only child, Jennifer Grant, and he stopped working immediately. He never made another film and was a full-time father. He reportedly spoke of Jennifer as his “best production”.
(EDIT: unfortunately I made a mistake in my talk and attributed Jennifer Grant to the wrong mother. It has now been corrected in this text, my apologies to all concerned.)

Priscilla Lane had gone through something similar at a much younger age. She made two more films after ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, then it was over because she got married when she was just 27. She had her first child and stayed at home, and eventually there were four children, and she said, “No, that’s all right, I’m happy to look after them.” A few years later, at 33, she did another film and it probably slipped out that she would have missed it so much, but then immediately added No, no, family comes first.

Compatibility

Many people would love to have both a family and a career. I have been commissioned to create this website to do something about this. You have just heard the three examples from Hollywood. They involved both children and relatives in need of care. And that’s what we are talking about. Maybe there are relatives who are ill, maybe someone has Longcovid or a complicated pelvic fracture, or their child has a disability or their parents are getting to the age where they can no longer look after themselves and need care. And something else is interesting in this context. German Actress Gesine Cukrowski launched the initiative #LetsChangeThePicture about the invisibility of women over 47 in German film and television productions, along with Palais Fluxx. And the same age now appears for those who care for relatives. Because when a woman is in her late 40s and her husband is the same age or a little older, some men develop illnesses – strokes, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, for example – and they may need to be given care. Or one’s own parents or parents-in-law become frail, then it’s primarily women who take care of them. So another reason why women stop working for money (even if they are still working full-time).

These two aspects – parenthood and caring for relatives – must be the focus. And this is actually a measure of the humanity of a society, how we deal with the future, i.e. the children, but also with the past, with our roots. And I have a feeling that small children, or rather someone with small children, are still more likely to hear “Oh how nice!” And small babies are really cute when they burp and then someone quickly goes to change their nappies and then they babble this crazy stuff to themselves. That’s cute. And young mums look almost sexy. If they only sleep for three hours every night, they have this tired face with shiny eyes, and if they’re still breastfeeding, they have large breasts, and that can also be very attractive. But the 50-year-old woman who is perhaps caring for her mother, her partner, her grandfather, who is babbling nonsense, who is incontinent, who is simply in need of care, nobody wants to talk about that because they may remind us of our own mortality. And outside of the film industry, they say – and these are of course only estimates – that only a quarter of the people working and at the same time being involved in caring for relatives in any way tell their employer at all, three quarters keep quiet about it. And I would estimate that there are even fewer in the film industry, perhaps 5 percent? That’s just an estimate. You probably all know people with children in the film industry. But how many do you know who care for relatives? Hm. Yes, they do exist.

But of course we can feel a bit more optimistic now as some producers recently called for more solidarity in the film industry. That’s great, because that’s what it’s all about.

 

[English translation to be continued]

31. December 2023
by SchspIN
Comments Off on TATORTE 2023: The Michael Gaze

TATORTE 2023: The Michael Gaze

Seit ungefähr zeitgleich mit dem Fernsehkrimifestival im März 2020 (Fernsehkrimis – die Jury sind wir!) die Pandemie nach Deutschland kam ist es mir gelungen, allen Coronaviren aus dem Weg zu gehen. Aber in der Weihnachtszeit 23 war es leider soweit. Ich erspare Euch meine Symptom- und Unwohlseinsschilderungen, nur so viel: diese viel erwähnte Abgeschlagenheit ist nicht ohne, so dass ich viel von dem, was ich eigentlich dieses Jahr noch vorhatte nicht angehen konnte und kann. Dazu gehört auch ein Teil der Untersuchungen zum heutigen Thema TATORTE 2023. Entfallen müssen unter anderem leider die Analyse der 36 Hauptcasts und der Schauspieler:innen, die 2023 in verschiedenen TATORTEN und TATORT-Städten besetzt waren, eine statistische Auswertung der Mörder und Mörderinnen und Täter und Täterinnen (u.a. bzgl. Quantität und Alter), eine Betrachtung der Einstiegsbilder und des Zustand der “Einstiegsleichen”. Da ich den Artikel nicht ins neue Jahr mitschleppen möchte erscheint er heute, – stark verkürzt.

TATORTE 2023: Was tut sich hinter der Kamera.

Die nächsten sechs Abbildungen zeigen den 6-Gewerke-Check für die 2023 erstausgestrahlten 36 TATORTE, die Analyse #2von6, die Entwicklung in den drei Gewerken Regie, Drehbuch und Kamera von 2011 bis 2023 sowie die sechs Gewerke (zusätzlich noch Ton, Montage und Musik) für die Jahre 2018 bis 2023. Außerdem den 6-Gewerke-Check und die #2von6-Analyse für die 2023 erstausgestrahlten 8 POLIZEIRUFE.

Der Trend der letzten Jahre hat sich fortgesetzt: sowohl der Regisseurinnen– als auch der Autorinnenanteil sind mit 47,2 % bzw. 41,5 % auf einem Höchstwert angekommen. Ihr erinnert Euch vielleicht wie mehr Regisseurinnen TATORTE inszenieren durften aufgrund einer zunächst niedrig bei 20 % liegenden Zielvorgabe oder Absichtserklärung der Degeto, die nach und nach angehoben wurde? Und dass daran irgendwie gekoppelt die Autorinnen weniger wurden? (Stichwort: “Wir haben schon eine Frau im Team”). Erst als die Drehbuchautorinnen und zuvor natürlich dieses Blog dagegen angingen, die Zahlen auf den Tisch legten bzw. per Brandbrief das Gespräch suchten kamen langsam (wieder) mehr Autorinnen in dieses bestbezahlte Fernsehformat. Ebenfalls sei daran erinnert, dass ungefähr gleich viele Frauen und Männer an den Hochschulen in den Fächern Regie bzw. Drehbuch ausgebildet werden.

Wir erleben jetzt etwas ähnliches mit den Kamerafrauen. Mehr Regisseurinnen, mehr Autorinnen, und gleichzeitig sind an der Kamera Frauen  kaum noch vertreten, also noch seltener als in den Vorjahren. Ebenso bleibt es bei den niedrigen Frauenanteilen in Ton und Komposition. Lediglich Montage, also der Schnitt, kommt auf weniger als 40 % Männer. Continue Reading →

17. September 2023
by SchspIN
1 Comment

Erste Halbzeit 2023: 48 zu 44!

TATORTE Erste Halbzeit 2023: 48 zu 44

Ja, der Titel erinnert an ein außer gewöhnlich torreiches Handballspiel, aber tatsächlich geht es wieder einmal um TATORTE, mit aktuellen Zahlen und zwei guten Nachrichten.

6-Gewerke-Check 2023 Sommerpause

Die 23 bis zur Sommerpause erstausgestrahlten TATORTE haben einen gerundeten 48 % (47,7 %) Regisseurinnenanteil und 44 % (44,1 %) Autorinnen. Nicht schlecht!

In der Montage machen Editorinnen 2/3 aus, in 15 TATORTEN waren sie allein verantwortlich, in dem Wien-Fall WAS IST DAS FÜR EINE WELT gab es ein Schnitt-Duo, Karina Ressler und Philipp Bittner.

Weniger vielversprechend sind die Zahlen für die übrigen Gewerke.

Besonders die 13 % Kamerafrauen enttäuschen, in diesem Gewerk sind immerhin ein Viertel der Hochschulalumni weiblich, aber sie werden für TATORTE nur selten engagiert. Lediglich drei standen in den ersten 23 TATORTEN 2023 hinter der Linse – Julia Jalnasow (München: SCHUTZMAßNAHMEN), Christiane Buchmann (Saarbrücken: DIE KÄLTE DER ERDE) und Katharina Diessner (Köln: WIE ALLE ANDEREN AUCH). Auffällig, kein Regisseur arbeitete mit einer Kamerafrau.

Und es gab nur eine Filmtonmeisterin: Claudia Mattai del Moro, die ebenfalls bei DIE KÄLTE DER ERDE arbeitete. Peter Tielker war bei vier TATORTEN Filmtonmeister (Dortmund, Kiel, Schwarzwald, Zürich), Je 3 mal Matthias Haeb (München, Köln, Bremen) und Wolfgang Wirtz (Franken, Stuttgart, Köln). Continue Reading →

31. July 2023
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Family-Friendliness and the Film Industry

Family-Friendliness and the Film Industry

This text is a short version of the keynote I held at Pro Quote Film’s “Family-friendly filming – the concrete congress” on 21.2.23. My first text on this topic was published on 14.4 2014 under the title “Children, cinema, career: how family-friendly is the film industry?”

Belinde Ruth Stieve at Pro Quote Film’s “Family-friendly filming. The concrete congress!”. Photo Sibylle Anneck

Family-Friendliness and the Film Industry

Background

Families are very popular in the film and television industry – as an audience, as a target group. But this family-friendliness is not what we are talking about here, but the compatibility of family and professional career in front of or behind the camera.

The employment rate of parents with children under six in Germany shows that fathers work 80-90% of the time, regardless of whether they have one, two or three children under six. Only every second mother is gainfully employed in the same family situation.
Continue Reading →

20. June 2023
by SchspIN
3 Comments

New Campaign: #swaptheadjectives

Swap the Adjectives! A Test

A few days ago I rece ived a programme note from Real Film Berlin / Studio Hamburg, it was about the start of broadcasting a six-part “thriller series” on Netflix. This is called SLEEPING DOGS and is based on the Israeli series IKARON HAHACHLAFA עקרון ההחלפה by Noah Stollmann and Ori Weisbrod (2016), which can be roughly translated as “exchange principle”. The German scripts are by Christoph Darnstädt.

Now I didn’t think “Yay! Finally a new crime series!” or “Supes! Finally a remake of a successful Israeli series” (like for example HATUFIM חטופים / “The Abducted” and BETIPUL בטיפול / “In Treatment”, although I generally prefer the original versions, but that’s another topic).

No, I was struck by the brief sketching of the main characters, which does seem a bit annoying. It only became interesting once I swapped the descriptive adjectives of the female and male roles, and that’s what today’s proposal for a new campaign is about.

#swaptheadjectives

Continue Reading →

13. June 2023
by SchspIN
1 Comment

Dem Napoléon seine Frau, Alter!

Abzählvers
Gesine und die Einleitung
Ridley Scott’s NAPOLÉON-Film und das Alter von Schauspieler:innen
Napoléon et Joséphine
Die neue Verfilmung
Historischer Exkurs
Die deutschen Schauspieler:innen und ihr Alter
3 Jahre-Vergleich [Datenbank Filmmakers]

 Kaiser von Rom
Napoléon sein Sohn
der war noch zu klein
um Kaiser zu sein
Noch ein Stückchen weiter
auf der Himmelsleiter
Hier bleib ich steh’n
um alles zu seh’n
eins, zwei, drei!

Gesine und die Einleitung

Neulich war ich zum “Let’s change the Picture”-Podcast von Gesine Cukrowski eingeladen, Ihr könnt das Gespräch hier nachhören (Zu Gast bei Gesine Cukrowski #LetsChangethePicture). Darin erwähnte ich nebenbei die aktuelle Ridley Scott Verfilmung eines Napoléon-Stoffs, in der Napoleons erste Frau Joséphine mit der 30-jährigen Jodie Comer besetzt war und Napoleon mit dem 48-jähringen Joaquin Phoenix. Hinterher habe ich nachgesehen, ob die Dreharbeiten schon abgeschlossen sind, und bei der Gelegenheit erfahren, dass Joséphine umbesetzt wurde.

Im Interview erwähnte ich auch, dass es bei uns in jüngeren Jahrgängen mehr professionelle Schauspielerinnen als Schauspieler gibt, diese aber früher aus dem Beruf ,verschwinden’ als ihre Kollegen. Diese Aussage stütze ich u.a. auf meine Altersauswertungen von Schauspieler:innen in der Castingdatenbank Filmmakers 2013 und 2017.

Um diese beiden Themenbereiche geht es in meinem heutigen Text.

Ridley Scott’s NAPOLÉON-Film und das Alter von Schauspieler:innen

Napoléon et Joséphine

Die neue Verfilmung

Der englische Regisseur und Filmproduzent Ridley Scott (85) führte u.a. Regie bei THE DUELISTS (1977, sein Langfilmregiedebüt, Buch Gerald Vaughan-Hughes), ALIEN (1979, Buch Dan O’Bannon und Ronald Shusett) und THELMA & LOUISE (1991, Drehbuchdebüt von Callie Khouri). Scott ist seit 2015 in dritter Ehe mit der 18 Jahre jüngeren kostarikanischen Schauspielerin Giannina Facio verheiratet.

Continue Reading →

28. April 2023
by SchspIN
Comments Off on Simple and Direct: #2von6 / #2of6

Simple and Direct: #2von6 / #2of6

#2of6 – A Useful Approach for the Industry

On April 1, I posted the German Federal Film Board FFA message FFA Focuses on Women’s Participation, New Funding Guideline Passed on Instagram:

adding the following explanation:

From the 3rd funding round in 2023, the FFA requires that submitted projects must involve at least one woman “in the six relevant departments”. A small start has been made, hopefully the other public film funding bodies will follow with similar advances. Whereby, better, more effective and more gender-equal would be my proposal #2of6. Continue Reading →

18. April 2023
by SchspIN
1 Comment

Zu Gast bei Gesine Cukrowski #LetsChangethePicture

Lets Change the Picture – Interviewt von Gesine Cukrowski

Am Ostermontag war ich – als erst zweiter Gast! – zum „Let’s Change The Picture“-LiveTalk von Gesine Cukrowski eingeladen, den Ihr weiter unten nachhören könnt.

Gesine hat einen Nachnamen, den sie vermutlich ähnlich häufig wie ich meinen buchstabieren muss, und der auf Polnisch irgendwas mit Zucker heißt. Sie hat außerdem kürzlich gemeinsam mit Silke Burmeister von Palais Fluxx (“Online-Magazine für Rausch, Revolte, Wechseljahre”) die Kampagne Let’s Change the Picture ins Leben gerufen – auf Deutsch in etwa: Lasst uns die Bilder verändern, oder etwas freier: verbessern.

Hierbei geht es um die unbefriedigende, klischeehaften Darstellung bis hin zur Abwesenheit von älteren Frauen im deutschen Film / Fernsehen. Wobei mit ,älteren Frauen’ Frauen ab 47 gemeint sind. Und dass das natürlich geändert werden soll – hin zu mehr Sichtbarkeit von Frauen ab 47 und deren wirklichen Geschichten.


„Es fehlen die Geschichten, die Frauen so erzählen, wie sie heute sind. Es gibt eine ganz eigene Film- und Fernsehrealität in Deutschland, die mit unseren gelebten Realitäten nicht so viel zu tun hat. Echte Geschichten von Frauen über 50 werden grundlos fürs Fernsehen auf die Frau Mitte 30 umgeschrieben. Das beraubt die älteren Frauen unserer Gesellschaft nicht nur ihrer Geschichten, es hat auch den Nebeneffekt, dass den gezeigten Frauenfiguren teilweise grotesk anmutende, weil viel zu umfangreiche Biografien angeheftet werden. Die wenigen Frauenfiguren 47+, die wir dann zu sehen kriegen, sind oft weit entfernt von unserer Lebensrealität und bedienen Stereotype, in denen wir uns einfach nicht wiederfinden.” (Gesine Cukrowski)
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