Director: Margarethe Von Trotta
Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch and Hannah Herzsprung
Narrative Feature: 2009 [Germany] German, Latin with English subtitles 111 minutes
Screening: February 13, 3:30pm, Altschul Auditorium, Barnard College
Actress Barbara Sukowa and Professor Elizabeth Castelli, Chair of the Religion Department at Barnard will join us for a discussion of the film.
Synopsis: Hildegard von Bingen was truly a woman ahead of her time. A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed 12th-century Benedictine nun was a Christian m
ystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist and ecological activist.
In Vision – from the Life of Hildegard von Bingen, New German Cinema auteur Margarethe von Trotta (Marianne and Juliane, Rosa Luxemburg, Rosenstrasse) reunites with recurrent star Barbara Sukowa (Zentropa, Berlin Alexanderplatz) to bring the story of this extraordinary woman to life. In a staggering performance, Sukowa portrays von Bingen’s fierce determination to expand the responsibilities of women within the order, even as she fends off outrage from some in the Church over the visions she claims to receive from God. Lushly shot in the original medieval cloisters of the fairytale-like German countryside, Vision is a profoundly inspirational portrait of a woman who has emerged from the shadows of history as a forward-thinking and iconoclastic pioneer of faith, change and enlightenment.
