Helma Sanders-Brahms (1940–2014) was a landmark figure of New German Cinema whose output ranged remarkably widely: from documentary to fiction, from historical drama to contemporary life, from tragedy to comedy, and from autobiographical women’s stories to the life and writing of the poet Heinrich von Kleist. She was able not only to reconstruct a life from the singularity of her subject, but also to draw frequently on literary and artistic material—classical drama, novels, poetry, fairy tales—to infuse her films with a dense language and a writerly gesture.
