The Second Awakening of Christa Klages 12A

A young woman robs a bank to pay for her daughter’s day-care. Whilst on the run she is pursued by the police and, more ambiguously, by the cashier she held at gunpoint. Margarethe von Trotta’s solo directorial debut, and the film that marked her out as one of the key women writer-directors of the New German Cinema movement, is an acutely observed reflection on her favourite theme: the powerful, and often mysterious, psychic bond among women. Shot on a shoestring budget, The Second Awakening of Christa Klages is one of a handful of films that responded to the events surrounding the contemporary national terrorist collective, the Baader-Meinhof Gang - a topic von Trotta often returned to in her later work. The film is a fascinating and immensely compelling drama that juxtaposes female relationships and sisterhood with the troubling uses, and effects, of violence.