Renate Sami

Renate Sami (* 1935 in Berlin; † 24 December 2023 in Berlin) was a German film director¹ who also worked as an actress, assistant director and screenwriter, as well as in the roles of camera operator, editor, production manager, producer and location manager.²

Career

At the age of 18, Renate Sami married an Egyptian and went with him to Cairo. She has a son. In the 1960s she returned to her home town of Berlin and trained as an interpreter and translator.³ Renate Sami initially taught French, English and German and also worked as a translator for publishers including Melzer, Wagenbach and Rotbuch, before turning to film in 1975 as a location and production manager and assistant director.⁴⁵In 1976 a biography of the French poet and anarchist Louise Michel, compiled by Sami and translated by her from French, was published.

Sami moved in left-wing political circles and lived, among other places, at Grunewaldstraße 88, a meeting point for the 68ers (the 1968 protest generation). In May 1970 she was arrested in Berlin on suspicion of having carried out an arson attack on the Amerika-Haus during an anti-war demonstration. She spent a year in pre-trial detention. After her imprisonment she herself worked for the „Rote Hilfe“ (Red Aid), which campaigned for political prisoners. In a text written in memory of Dorothea Ridder, Sami describes her connections to the left-wing scene of the 68ers. In her trial, too, she was defended by the lawyers’ collective of Hans-Christian Ströbele, Klaus Eschen and Otto Schily. She was acquitted only after the lawyers had lodged an appeal.⁶Sami also collaborated, together with Klaus Eschen, Sibylle Plogstedt and Viktor Serge, on the book „Wie man gegen Polizei und Justiz die Nerven behält“ (How to keep your nerve against the police and the judiciary), published by Rotbuch Verlag.⁷

After the death of the film student Holger Meins, who died in 1974 in Wittlich prison following a hunger strike in protest against the conditions of detention for RAF prisoners, Sami, with the help of some of Meins’ friends and fellow students, made the documentary „Es stirbt allerdings ein jeder …“ about him, which was released in 1976. She began working in various roles in film, including as an assistant director and as production and location manager. In 1975 she applied to the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB; German Film and Television Academy Berlin) and was rejected.⁸⁹¹⁰

Sami’s feminist perspective becomes evident, for example, in the work „Filmtagebuch D 1975–1985 (Streifzüge)“, which on the one hand portrays life in West Berlin in a kind of cinematic essay/diary, but on the other hand focuses above all on women and women’s everyday lives.¹¹ In other films too, such as „Mit Pyramiden“ (With Pyramids, 1990), Sami takes viewers on a journey – here to Egypt – whose image sequences and composition remain unexplained, leaving room for their own interpretations and associations.¹² In it, Sami introduces two women who talk about their lives without commentary.¹³

In 1991 Sami took part in the Berlinale with „Mit Pyramiden“.¹⁴ Her works were shown at events including the Rosen Filmfest in the Palmengarten Frankfurt (2003) and the Women Make Waves Festival in Taiwan (2004).¹⁵ Under the title „A History of Resistance“, several of Sami’s works were also shown at the Harvard Film Archive, with Sami herself attending the screenings.¹⁶ Her work is classified as belonging to a rather experimental, avant-garde genre.¹⁷ Her friend, the filmmaker and curator Ute Aurand, describes her films as a mixture of “essay, poetry, documentary, diary, music, silence, language.”¹⁸ Sami herself, too, compares the film „Ein Jahr“ (A Year; premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2011), for example, to a poem.¹⁹ Ute Aurand regularly included Sami’s works in her programmes.²⁰ For her 80th birthday in 2015, the Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. (Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art) held a retrospective of her work.²¹

From 1997 onwards, Ute Aurand and Sami, together with Theo Thiesmeyer, another filmmaker, also organised the film series „Filmsamstag“ (Film Saturday).²² Sami also took part as a guest in events organised by the Kinothek Asta Nielsen e. V.²³

In „Berlin Chamissoplatz“ (1980) Sami played a barmaid and also acted as producer.²⁴ The film „Aus heiterem Himmel“ (Out of the Blue), on which Sami worked with Marie-Susanne Ebert, Monika Funke-Stern, Ebba Jahn, Barbara Kasper, Anke Oehme, Ingrid Oppermann, Angi Welz-Rommel and Claudia Schilinski, won the award for best television film at the international film week of the Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg in 1982.²⁵

In 2020 the Filmförderungsanstalt (German Federal Film Board) granted the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek funding of 65,676.25 euros for the restoration and preservation of the 1990 film „Mit Pyramiden“ on grounds of curatorial interest.²⁶

Renate Sami died in Berlin on 24 December 2023.

Filmography

1976: Es stirbt allerdings ein jeder … (16 mm, b/w and colour, 60 min.; in the archive of the Deutsche Kinemathek)
1976: Jackpot, with Matthias Weiss (16 mm, colour, 80 min.; in the archive of the Kinemathek München)
1978: Geschichten erzählen (video, b/w, 80 min.)
1983: Die Schutzfolie (16 mm, b/w, 8 min.; distributed by Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst)
1984: Grüne Chevrolets oder der Saxophonspieler, with Ebba Jahn (16 mm, colour, 10 min.)
1985: Cesare Pavese. Turin – Santo Stefano Belbo, with Petra Seeger (16 mm, colour, 60 min.; in the archive of the Deutsche Kinemathek)
1986: Nur ein paar Schritte (video, b/w, 80 min.)
1990: Mit Pyramiden (16 mm, colour, 93 min.; in the archive of the Deutsche Kinemathek)
1990: Fahrt nach Kairo (16 mm, colour, 60 min.; in the archive of the Deutsche Kinemathek)
1994: Die schöne Gießerin (video High8, colour, 30 min.)
1995: Wenn du eine Rose siehst (16 mm, colour, 4 min.; distributed by Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst)
1996: Gespräche mit 14 Nipkow-Stipendiaten (video VHS, colour, 30 min.)
1996: Broadway Mai 95 (16 mm, b/w and colour, 30 min.; distributed by Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst)
2000: Sarah Schumann (MiniDV, colour, 46 min.)
2003: Taliesin. Frank Lloyd Wright (MiniDV, colour, 22 min.)
2005: Filmtagebuch 1975–1985 (Streifzüge) (MiniDV, colour, 37 min.)
2007: Liane Birnbergs Werkstatt und die Geschichte ihres Vaters David Baruch Birnberg (MiniDV, 38 min.)
2011: Ein Jahr (MiniDV, b/w and colour, 12 min.)
2011: Venedig 2011 (HDV, colour, 4:50 min.)
2013: Am Lietzensee (HDV, colour, 9:25 min.)
2013: Kairo April 2013 (HDV, colour, 1:45 min.)
2015: Sarah Schumann malt ein Bild (HDV, 15 min.)
2016: Japan März 2014 (HDV, colour, 4:47 min.)
2016: Linum mit Barbara (HDV, colour, 1:13 min.)
2017: Buchholz mit Antje (HDV, colour, 2 min.)
2018: 1, 2, 3 Krähen und eine leere Bank (HDV, colour, 2 min.)
2018: Cape Cod (HDV, colour, 2:37 min.)

Publications/translations (selection)

Lowenfels, Walter (ed.) (1968): Wo ist Vietnam? 89 amerikanische Dichter gegen den Krieg in Vietnam. Translated from American English by Renate Sami and Horst Tomayer. Darmstadt: Melzer.
Meynaud, Jean (1969): Bericht über die Abschaffung der Demokratie in Griechenland. Parteien, Kapital, Königshaus, Armee vor und nach dem Putsch. Translated by Renate Sami. Berlin: Wagenbach.
Guérin, Daniel/Mandel, Ernest (1972): Einführung in die Geschichte des amerikanischen Monopolkapitals. Translated from French by Renate Genth and Renate Sami. Berlin: Wagenbach, ISBN 978-3-8031-1037-4.
Behar, Abraham/Chevallier, Robert/Depaquit, Serge/Felix, Christian/Guillou, Henri/Krumnow, Fredo/Sauvageot, Jacques (1972): Que faire: Klassenkämpfe in Frankreich seit dem Mai 1968. Translated from French by Renate Sami. Berlin, Merve-Verlag.
Eschen, Klaus/Plogstedt, Sibylle/Sami, Renate/Serge, Victor (1973): Wie man gegen Polizei und Justiz die Nerven behält. Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, ISBN 978-3-88022-007-2.
Debray, Régis/Gallo, Max/Carrillo, Santiago (1975): Spanien nach Franco. Translated from French by Renate Sami. Berlin: VSA – Verlag f. d. Studium d. Arbeiterbewegung, ISBN 978-3-87975-051-1.
(1976): Louise Michel: Ihr Leben, ihr Kampf, ihre Ideen. (Der Anarchofeminismus translated from American English by Reinhard Lauterbach and Dita Stafski; Louise Michel translated from French and compiled by Renate Sami.) Berlin: Kramer, ISBN 978-3-87956-071-4.
Sami, Renate/Behrend, Heike (1988): Holger Meins, Filmstudent von 1966 bis 1968. In: Petermann, Werner/Thoms, Ralph (eds.): Kino-Fronten. 20 Jahre ’68 und das Kino. München: Trickster Verlag, ISBN 978-3-923804-24-5, pp. 17–20.

External links

Pellett, Gail (2011): A Year/Ein Jahr – a film by Renate Sami. In: Gail Pellett Productions, post of 10 October. Available online at: https://gailpellettproductions.com/a-yearein-jahr-a-film-by-renate-sami/ (accessed on 25 May 2021).
Goettle, Gabriele (2008): Renate Sami erzählt: „Alle waren antiautoritär“. In: die tageszeitung, article of 23 May. Available online at: https://taz.de/Filmemacherin-Renate-Sami-erzaehlt/!5181669/ (accessed on 25 May 2021).
Literature by and about Renate Sami in the catalogue of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library)
Renate Sami in the Internet Movie Database
Renate Sami at filmportal.de

Machine translation: This article was translated automatically from the German original.

1
Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek (n.d.): Personenseite Renate Sami. In: Archiv der Deutschen Film- und Fernsehakademie. Available online at: https://dffb-archiv.de/dffb/renate-sami (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
2
DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum e. V. (n.d.): Personenseite Renate Sami. In: filmportal.de. Available online at: https://www.filmportal.de/person/renate-sami_0311a5c271f9435fa0688c8119760dec (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
3
Pellett, Gail (2011): A Year/Ein Jahr – a film by Renate Sami. In: Gail Pellett Productions, post of 10 October. Available online at: https://gailpellettproductions.com/a-yearein-jahr-a-film-by-renate-sami/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
4
Hamburger Filmbüro (ed.) (1991): Filmblatt zu „Mit Pyramiden“, Berlinale. ↩︎
5
Goettle, Gabriele (2008): Renate Sami erzählt: „Alle waren antiautoritär“. In: die tageszeitung, article of 23 May. Available online at: https://taz.de/Filmemacherin-Renate-Sami-erzaehlt/!5181669/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
6
Goettle, Gabriele (2008): Renate Sami erzählt: „Alle waren antiautoritär“. In: die tageszeitung, article of 23 May. Available online at: https://taz.de/Filmemacherin-Renate-Sami-erzaehlt/!5181669/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
7
Plogstedt, Sibylle (n.d.): Publikationsinfo. In: Webseite von Sibylle Plogstedt. Available online at: http://sibylle-plogstedt.de/publikationen/sachbuecher/wie-man-gegen-polizei-und-justiz-die-nerven-behaelt/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
8
n.a. (1975): Akademiebewerbung. In: FILMKRITIK, no. 224, August, p. 374. ↩︎
9
Bernstorff, Madeleine (2002): Wie hast du gelebt? In: die tageszeitung, article of 16 November. Available online at: https://taz.de/!1077874/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
10
Goettle, Gabriele (2008): Renate Sami erzählt: „Alle waren antiautoritär“. In: die tageszeitung, article of 23 May. Available online at: https://taz.de/Filmemacherin-Renate-Sami-erzaehlt/!5181669/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
11
Freerix, Michael (2017): Renate Sami. In: Ausland. Available online at: https://ausland-berlin.de/renate-sami (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
12
Aurand, Ute (1998): Archiv. In: Filmsamstag, of 16 March. Available online at: http://www.filmsamstag.de/archiv/1998/05/mit_pyramiden_r.php (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
13
n.a. (n.d.) Database: Filmseite zu „Mit Pyramiden“. In: Dokumentarfilmgeschichte. Forschungsplattform zum dokumentarischen Film in Deutschland. Available online at: http://www.db.dokumentarfilmgeschichte.de/detail.php?typ=film&id=17237 (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
14
n.a. (1991): Filmdatenblatt: Mit Pyramiden. In: Webseite der Berlinale. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin. Available online at: https://www.berlinale.de/de/archiv/jahresarchive/1991/02_programm_1991/02_filmdatenblatt_1991_19911026.html (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
15
Universität Paderborn (n.d.): Personenseite Renate Sami. In: Blogs – Uni Paderborn . Ein Service des Zentrums für Informations- und Medientechnologien. Available online at: https://blogs.uni-paderborn.de/brauerhoch/renate-sami/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
16
German Consulate General Boston (n.d.): The Films of Renate Sami at the Harvard Film Archive. In: German Missions in the United States. Available online at: https://www.germany.info/us-en/embassy-consulates/boston/-/2130978 (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
17
n.a. (n.d.): Renate Sami. In: Experimental Cinema. News and resources on experimental films. Available online at: https://expcinema.org/site/en/tags/renate-sami (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
18
n.a. (2018): A History of Resistance. The Films of Renate Sami. In: Harvard Film Archive. Available online at: https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/a-history-of-resistance-the-films-of-renate-sami (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
19
Pellett, Gail (2011): A Year/Ein Jahr – a film by Renate Sami. In: Gail Pellett Productions, post of 10 October. Available online at: https://gailpellettproductions.com/a-yearein-jahr-a-film-by-renate-sami/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
20
Aurand, Ute (n.d.): Filmreihen/Curations. In: Webseite von Ute Aurand. Available online at: http://www.uteaurand.de/programm/kuratierte_filmprogramme.php (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
21
arsenal. institut für film und videokunst e. V. (2015): Für Renate Sami. In: arsenal-berlin.de. Available online at: https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/forum-forum-expanded/news/fuer-renate-sami/ (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
22
n.a. (2018): A History of Resistance. The Films of Renate Sami. In: Harvard Film Archive. Available online at: https://harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/a-history-of-resistance-the-films-of-renate-sami (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
23
Kinothek Asta Nielsen e. V. (2017): Archiv. In: Webseite der Kinothek Asta Nielsen. Available online at: https://www.kinothek-asta-nielsen.de/archiv/2017.html (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
24
n.a. (n.d.): Filmografie Renate Sami. In: fernsehserien.de. Available online at: https://www.fernsehserien.de/renate-sami/filmografie (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
25
Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim Heidelberg (n.d.): Sonderpreis für den Besten Fernsehfilm. In: 1982 IFFMH-Chronik. Available online at: https://www.iffmh.de/das-sind-wir/festivalarchiv/1982/index_ger.html (accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎
26
FFA – Filmförderungsanstalt (2020): Förderprogramm Filmerbe: 1,7 Millionen Euro für die Restaurierung und Digitalisierung von 38 Filmen. In: Webseite der FFA, press release of 24 September. Available online at: https://www.ffa.de/aid=1469.html?newsdetail=20200924-1613_foerderprogramm-filmerbe-17-millionen-euro-fuer-die-restaurierung-und-digitalisierung-von-38-filmen(accessed on 25 May 2021). ↩︎