Berlin filmmaker Renate Sami has died.
Renate Sami
May 1935 – December 24, 2023
Renate Sami lived through ’68 as well as the leaden Germany of the 1970s. And not only witnessed it: she was involved in left-wing political circles. She was not only a filmmaker, but also an actress and screenwriter and knew her way around a camera. More here.
Search for clues in one of the poorest reservations in the USA.
Murder is the third most common cause of death among indigenous people in the USA. Above all, women are murdered or reported missing. There are many reasons. Alcohol and drugs almost always play a role. Men and young men are also victims. The poor Pine Ridge Reservation in the state of South Dakota is particularly affected.
One year ago, the journalist Brigitte Czirr passed on.
Brigitte “Gitti” Czirr
Born 1955 – November 25, 2022
To mark the first anniversary of her death, I am posting three of her radio features with the kind permission of her family.
Text by Volker Seitz on the occasion of the exhibition “Witches in Exile”.
In 41 countries it is said that it is still everyday life that women in particular are persecuted as witches. The exhibition in Munich, Germany, is dedicated to this phenomenon using the example of the remote Northern Region in northern Ghana.
That time “a crime of passion”: now branded as domestic violence.
Lisa Hullinger from Ohio was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Germany on September 25, 1978. So 45 years ago. Her grieving parents founded the self-help organisation Parents of Murdered Children. In 2007, the U.S. Congress designated September 25 as the National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims.
First anniversary of a Native American tragedy.
One year ago, on September 15, 2022, Nyvelle Quick Bear, 27 years old, was murdered by her boyfriend on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. One of many Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) in the USA and Canada. The team of the Oglala Sioux Tribe Victim Services cares for relatives and survivors.
Native female biker activist: Riding for Recilience.
In front of a large white wall are standing 16 women, dressed in traditional robes of their respective tribes. Red and black are the dominant colors. Hard to believe, I think, that just a day ago these women were in thick black motorcycle suits.
How a women’s pants manufacturer promotes other women and rural communities.
Sarah Calhoun manufactures women’s work pants in the US state of Montana called Red Ants Pants. But it’s not just the pants brand that’s famous: Every year at the end of July, the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, also founded by Calhoun, attracts thousands of visitors. Proceeds go to support projects for women’s leadership and rural family farms.
A portrait of Rabbi Anemone Nitzan Stein-Kokin
The security situation for Jewish communities has also deteriorated significantly in the United States. Anemone Nitzan Stein Kokin feels this clearly. Born in the German town of Karlsruhe, she heads the conservative-liberal Masorti Congregation Beth El in Phoenix, Arizona.
The amazing live story of Renate Ellmenreich
Although never a member of any youth organisation of the GDR, Renate Ellmenreich was allowed to graduate from high school as a so-called “worker’s and farmer’s child”. She studied theology and became a pastor but soon got into troubles with State Security. Then went to West Germany and as a development aid worker to Nigeria, where she founded a “widow’s village”. She supports a housing project for widows and their children in North Nigeria.