In West Berlin in March 1977, Edda, a freelance press photographer and single mother, moves between work, family, and her own creative projects over the course of three days. Together with several other women photographers she shoots the city, only to be repeatedly confronted with the constraints imposed by her clients and the system. Helke Sander directs and stars, juxtaposing women’s daily lives with urban space and presenting the reality of this divided city somewhere between documentary and fiction. Faced with the pressure of survival and menial labor, they persist in shooting what they truly want to shoot, on their own terms.
Helke Sander, born in Berlin in 1937, is a German director, writer, and pioneer of feminist cinema. She studied at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin, was active in the West German women’s movement, and in 1974 founded the journal Frauen und Film (Women and Film). Her work has long explored the relationship between women’s labor, everyday life, and social structures. Beyond filmmaking, she has also worked extensively as a writer, teacher, and organizer within women’s film culture.
