Neun Leben hat die Katze

The first feminist film of the FRG – in ›Neun Leben hat die Katze‹, five women share their everyday experiences, sexual fantasies and longings.

The newly divorced Anne (Christine de Loup) leaves France to visit her friend Katharina (Liane Hielscher), a journalist, in Munich during the summer. They attend parties, meet friends and discuss their ideas of female emancipation. Ula Stöckl's "situation report", ›Neun Leben hat die Katze‹, is an episodic essay film that brings together five types of women: the professional, the divorcée, the betrayed woman, the careerist, the dream woman. When the film premiered in Mannheim in 1968, it was met with irritation by audiences and critics. Today it is considered a milestone of German cinema and "the first work by a German filmmaker to focus on female self-determination as sexual self-determination." (Gabriele Dietze)

Watch a special video greeting by director Ula Stöckl here.

Director