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Sophie Charlotte Rieger (engl)

© Wiebke Detemple

That’s me: Sophie Charlotte Rieger, born, raised and still living in Berlin, Germany. In 2012 I  started off as a freelance journalist and film critic for various on- and offline media outlets. My first online alias was filmosophie, associated with the first movie blog I launched and that was called filmosophie.com. After having worked on it with several co-authors for a few years, I decided to shut it down in 2017. I have a „day job“ at the Play-Out-Center of ARD (German public television) that enables me to keep on writing in a time when the only thing dying faster than journalism is film criticism.

Right now I am writing for the following outlets:

In the past I have been writing for:

My articles have been published on the blog of „Haus der Berliner Festspiele“ and in Freitag.

Juries and Commissions

In 2012 I became a member of VDFK, in 2013 I joined FIPRESCI. I was part of the following FIPRESCI-Juries:

Other Juries:

I was a member of the selection committee of Grimme Preis in 2015 and 2016.

© Laura Krestan

Speaker

5/2017: Female Characters on Screen – Facts and Figures; introduction at opening of Femmes Totales Filmtour in Hannover

3/2017: Film and Feminism – An idea becomes virtual reality; lecture on blogging at the kick-off workshop for the Helene-Weber-Kolleg Reverse-Mentoring program

7/2016: From Reel to Real – Watching movies with a feminist gaze; lecture at HfG Offenbach

11/2015: Symposium „Frau. Macht.Filme“ (Symposium: „Woman.Power.Movies.“): panel discussion on feminist film criticsm at Filmz – Festival des deutschen Kinos

Werdegang

I studied North American Studies, Latin American Studies and Psychology at FU Berlin and Universidad de La Laguna (Spain). in 2011 I handed in my master thesis on „Apocalypse Now and Then: The religious subtext in US-American Science Fiction movies of the 50s and today“.

While in university I worked as a script reader, in the PR and marketing of a small Berlin off theater and many years in different youth centers in Berlin’s „bad areas“ Wedding and Moabit. After graduating University I did a theater pedagogy training, which I finalized but then decided to rather become a full time journalist.

In 2013 I participated in the Nisimazine Film Criticism Workshop in Cannes and the FIPRESCI young critic’s workshop in Tallinn.

Objectives

FILMLÖWIN is my profession and my vocation. Since I started with the project, I have increasingly devoted myself to a feminist analysis of film and television – not just with writing articles, but also with lectures and my personal commitment i.e. in juries and commissions. I have come to understand myself as a film activist rather than a film critic.

My goal is to promote and firmly establish the feminist discourse about film and television in the German-speaking part of the world. This includes the support of and spotlight on movie women in all trades as well as their struggle for equality. Feminist arguments must not only be firmly implemented in the production of films, for example when it comes to design female characters, but also in film evaluation, promotion and awards. Sexist films should neither be promoted nor praised. On the contrary: the abandonment of sexist stereotypes and narrations in the 21st century should be self-evident and, above all, a general consensus.

As a result of my educational activities during my studies and my subsequent training, it is still my dream to work in the field of media pedagogy and to teach children and young people how to detect gender stereotyping in TV and cinema. Because I am sure, on the long run, this is the key to gender equality in front of and behind movies cameras.