“Alice Schwarzer has always been a polarizing force,” writes film distributor Frenetic Films in its press kit about the film, which is a documentary about the life of the German feminist. That was the case forty years ago – and even more so today.
At the end of April, Schwarzer published an open letter to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz via her magazine “Emma”. She called on the German government – together with 28 celebrities from culture and society – not to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine.
«On the contrary, we urge you to do everything you can to ensure that a ceasefire can be reached as soon as possible; to a compromise that both sides can accept,” it said. This to prevent a third world war. Within a few hours, tens of thousands of people also signed the open letter.
Let Russia win? Unthinkable for many
The letter sparked outraged reactions on Twitter. A few days later, the Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller and prominent authors such as Daniel Kehlmann responded with a “counter-letter”. The message: Ukraine’s cause is also Germany’s. “Anyone who attacks the European peace order, tramples on international law and commits massive war crimes must not leave the field as a winner,” it says. A similar attitude is represented, for example, by the Zug National Council and Central President Gerhard Pfister (zentralplus reported).
Alice Schwarzer criticizes Selenski at the premiere of the film
After the premiere of the film in Munich, Alice Schwarzer spoke again about the Russia conflict. She told the German Press Agency that she would like the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to adopt more moderate tones. “I regret that Selenski does not stop provoking,” she quotes the DPA as saying.
Alice Schwarzer uses the attention surrounding the film to draw attention to her position in the Ukraine conflict. Is that what director Sabine Derflinger meant? Her work is about something completely different: Schwarzer’s fight for women’s rights and how she shaped it. The film runs from Thursday at the Bourbaki in Lucerne.
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