Film icon Hanna Schygulla turns 80 - "Something new every now and then"

Birthday - Film icon Hanna Schygulla turns 80 - "Something new every now and then"

She has just finished filming on the North Sea, on a Wadden island. She already has a new request for a film on the table - and when there is a break, she pushes ahead with her own projects: the translation of her biography into French, a short film about refugees. Hanna Schygulla, who became famous many years ago as Fassbinder's discovery, celebrates her 80th birthday on December 25. She doesn't seem to be getting tired.

"I'm impressed myself," she says, "even if I slow down sometimes. But that's a good thing, too." There have been health crises, but: "I've always come out of them well," Schygulla told the German Press Agency before her birthday. When asked about her motto, she says: "Long live joie de vivre - and something new from time to time. And most importantly: humor."

She is currently trying something new on her birthday. She never used to celebrate in a big way, but for her 80th she wants to do it "properly" for the first time: Friends from Paris and Brussels, among other places, are traveling to Berlin.

Congratulations are also coming from Munich. Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) paid tribute to her "great film career". "You have shaped the European film scene to this day. It is impressive how unbroken your creative power and presence is."

How did she get into acting?

Schygulla's path to acting was not necessarily predetermined. She studied Romance and German studies and wanted to write her thesis on Karl Valentin, whom she admires.

It was Rainer Werner Fassbinder who first brought her to the theater in the 1960s, with whom she made her mark on auteur film, and it was with his films - such as "Effi Briest", "The Marriage of Maria Braun" and "Lili Marleen" - that she became famous. "He was certainly the decisive man for the course of my life - because without him I wouldn't have become an actress. I had already left drama school. That's when he remembered me," she says.

Later, Hanna Schygulla worked with European directing greats such as Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Luc Godard, Carlos Saura and Marco Ferreri. Her collaboration with Ferreri earned her the Actor's Prize in Cannes in 1983. Between dream and reality - yet wide awake and present: that was the Schygulla effect. She captivated people with it. For Hollywood, she played Catherine the Great in the television series "Peter the Great".

Caring for her parents

Schygulla sometimes put her career on hold to care for her parents. "They were neglected in my life before, during and after the catastrophe of the world wars," she once said. "I wanted to make up for that as best I could towards the end."

From the nineties onwards, the multi-award-winning actress also performed as a chanson singer and increasingly stood behind the camera herself. For example, she made short films entitled "Traumprotokolle" (Dream Protocols), which were shown in New York and Berlin.

She lived in Paris for many decades - still the center of her life alongside Berlin. "At some point it will shrink down to one place of residence. But as long as I can, I still find it stimulating," she says. Berlin is not as beautiful as Paris, which was largely undestroyed during the war, but it is colorful.

From Upper Silesia to Munich

Hanna Schygulla moved between two cultures early on when she came to Munich with her mother as a refugee from Upper Silesia in 1945. Her escape, her childhood in Bavaria and her relationship with her father after he returned home from captivity left their mark on her. Back then, she oscillated between the boy her father would have liked her to be, the beautiful princess, the refugee child and the Munich child, the stubborn girl and the daydreamer.

To this day, she is connected to those who come as refugees - and who, like her, wander between cultures. She instructed Kurdish girls in Berlin to make short films. Recently, as a member of an online jury, she came into contact with young Ukrainian filmmakers. "They knew me and were happy about my participation. I was amazed to see how essential films continue to be made despite life-threatening situations."

In late fall, Schygulla shot the second part of his trilogy about being a stranger with up-and-coming director Ameer Fakher Eldin - born in Ukraine, raised in the Golan Heights, living in Hamburg - on the North Sea. She plays the landlady of a Wadden island that is repeatedly washed over by the sea. In January, her short films about "being human in exceptional times" will be shown at the Film Museum in Munich.

"Every age has its beauty"

Concealing her age, dyeing her hair - not an issue for Schygulla. "Perhaps I am one of the few actresses who look the way they have become. The beauty craze is so far removed from that. Every age has its beauty."

Schygulla is currently working on the translation of her autobiography "Wake up and dream", which is due to be published in French ten years later. She is also currently looking back on her life in depth: "I'm impressed by how rich it was."