In contemporary documents and currently filmed material, we experience Alice Schwarzer, icon of the German women’s movement, at work and in private.

Alice Schwarzer became world famous with her book Der kleine Unterschied (The Little Difference), in which women spoke openly about their sex lives. At least as important and momentous was her campaign for the legalization of abortion in Germany. An article printed in Stern magazine titled “Wir haben abgetrieben” (We had an abortion) gave her campaign of the same name widespread attention and was an igniting spark for the impunity of abortion. The latter was taken for granted in recent decades, but is now being questioned again in some countries. The film walks between times with montages and serves informative and aesthetic aspects in equal measure in its historical claim.

Alice Schwarzer was influenced by her childhood with her grandparents in Wuppertal, her youth in France, her life with her then partner Bruno and her entry into the French women’s movement MLF. Today Alice Schwarzer lives in Cologne, in the Bergisches Land and in Paris. She writes books, has published the women’s magazine Emma since 1977, and picks up every hot potato related to power issues between the sexes. As before, the controversial woman finds herself at the center of heated discussions.

In the film, Bettina Flitner, photographer and Alice’s wife, has her say, and we also see interviews with companions such as Élisabeth Badinter, Peter Merseburger, Jenny Erpenbeck, Jasmin Tabatabai, Franziska Becker, Anne Zelensky and Sonja Hopf, as well as archive footage, including Henri Nannen, Rudolf Augstein, Margarete Mitscherlich, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre.

Alice Schwarzer screened at DOK.fest Munich 2022 and won the Grand Diagonale Award for Best Documentary at the Diagonale in Graz.