Awards: Herfurth uses acceptance speech: "Women must be visible"

In the opinion of filmmaker Karoline Herfurth (39), more stories from a female perspective and a critical examination of ideals of beauty are needed. The director and actress was awarded the Ernst Lubitsch Prize. The award is named after the director Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) and honors the best comedic performance in a German-language film.

Herfurth used her acceptance speech in Berlin for a socio-political comment. “If women would no longer waste their time, energy and resources on their appearance, if they would no longer believe in Heidi Klum’s beliefs, then they would have more time, energy and resources for the urgently needed breaking up of traditional structures and for the overthrow from traditional role models,” she said. “Then they would have more time and energy to unite against male violence and to fight for de facto equality.”

“Because women have to be visible. Women don’t just starve themselves thin and powerless. They are invisible,” criticized Herfurth. “Their realities, their perspectives, their historical achievements are not taught, not narrated, not reproduced.”

“A very political problem for women”

Herfurth was awarded for its films “Wonderful” and “Simply something beautiful”. The tragicomedy “Wonderful” deals with common ideals of beauty based on the stories of different women. “I survived anorexia myself and don’t know a single woman who eats from a healthy gut feeling or looks at her own body with a loving gaze,” said Herfurth on stage.

The concentration of female power on one’s own appearance, accompanied by “continuous propaganda” through advertising, bad role models and the media, is – yes, certainly – a woman’s problem. “A very political problem for women.” Her film “Simply something beautiful” also deals with a women’s problem: the problem of women’s disempowerment when it comes to their reproductive decisions.

Herfurth reminded of women who have achieved a lot, but whose names are less well known and about whom little is taught at school. “Is that education or is that propaganda? Propaganda of a ruling system that is life-threatening for women, the patriarchy. Women are kept secret in the meaninglessness as unpaid personnel,” she criticized.