Rosenstrasse (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Rosenstrasse


caption = Rosenstrasse US DVD cover
writer = Pamela Katz
Margarethe von Trotta
starring = Maria Schrader
Katja Riemann
Martin Feifel
director = Margarethe von Trotta
producer = Herbert G. Kloiber
released = 2003 Germany
runtime = 136 min.
language = German
English
imdb_id = 0298131

"Rosenstrasse" (or "Rosenstraße") is a 2003 film by Margarethe von Trotta, dealing with the Rosenstrasse protest. Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "mature thematic material, some violence and brief drug content."

Plot summary

In the present day, a widow mourns the death of her husband. She covers up the TV set and all the mirrors in the house.

Her grown children are baffled by this behavior, asking why their mother has suddenly gone Orthodox Jewish. The mother starts reminiscing about World War II, about her childhood as a Jew growing up in Germany during the war. It is the story of a little girl (the widow mother) who loses her own mother to the Nazi concentration camps. It also addresses what happened to those who were in a mixed ("Aryan"/Jewish) marriage, people we often forget about. Amid constant flashbacks, the film pieces together the story of the Rosenstrasse protest, where the women waited for seven days and nights outside of a Nazi jail for their Jewish husbands. The protests took place in Berlin during the winter of 1943.

Awards

The film won a David at the David di Donatello Awards. Franz Rath won for Best Cinematography at the Bavarian Film Awards, and von Trotta won the UNICEF Award at the Venice Film Festival.