Frauen-Leben
Gabriele Voss, Christa Donner
»We’d looked for an apartment in Ebel and set up some living and working premises there in order to get more acquainted with the people and their way of life by ourselves living in the same area, at least temporarily. We took the recording equipment and a cutting table along to enable the locals to participate in the film work. We wanted to be available to them and, at each stage of the work, stay in direct contact with them.«
– Gabriele Voss
The Ruhr of the late 1970s has created a legend – there are countless songs, poems, pictures and stories. And mining is for men. The women behind the workers are not visible to the world.
In Frauen-Leben (Women’s Lives – Women Life), grandmothers, mothers and daughters tell of their hidden influence, how they backed the men, encouraged them and took care of the large families while neglecting themselves in the process. Work as self-realisation? There was neither the time nor the space for that. By juxtapositioning the generations, Ms Donner and Ms Voss make palpable what has changed in the life situation of the women … and what remained in the year of 1980.
Frauen-Leben (Women’s Lives – Women Life) is part of the Ruhr Film Centre’s long-term documentary project Prosper Ebel – Chronicle of a Colliery and its Housing Estate.
Film programme Ruhr Local: Ruhr and Work, Two Sides of the Same Coin
Gabriele Voss
Gabriele Voss was born 1948 in Hagen, studied German and sociology and wrote a doctorate on perception theory and aesthetics. Since 1978, she has both lived and worked in the Ruhr area where she co-founded the Ruhr Film Centre and the Film Office of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Films by Gabriele Voss (Selection)
HalbZeit 2006 – 2009 | Thomas Harlan – Wandersplitter 2003 – 2006 | Die Champions 2002 | Anna Zeit Land 1993/94 | Vincent van Gogh – Der Weg nach Courrières 1988/89 | Lebensgeschichte des Bergarbeiters Alfons S. 1979 – 1997
Christa Donner
Christa Donner, born 1945, completed a training course in photography in 1968. From 1972 to 1976, she studied film at the German Film & Television Academy in Berlin and, from 1977, worked as a writer and director of TV and radio reports. In 1999, she moved to Berlin where since 2004 she has been working for the German Film Archive / Museum for Film & Television and helping create the TV Programme Gallery.
Films by Christa Donner (Selection)
Ehrenamt: Volunteers are Shining Stars 2003 | „www.future.de“ – Über die Zukunft der Arbeit 2001 | Die Zukunft der Arbeit 1995 | Der Bubikopf 1989 | Die roten Republiken für Kinder 1983 | Der Neill von Summerhill 1983
