Margarethe von Trotta’s solo directorial debut, and the film that marked her out as one of the key women writer-directors of the New German Cinema movement, was an acutely observed reflection of her favourite theme: the powerful and often mysterious psychic bond among women.

It follows a young woman who robs a bank to pay for her daughter’s day-care with the help of her lover. On the run, she is pursued by the police and more ambiguously, also by the young woman who was her hostage in the raid.

Shot on a shoestring budget, this compelling and convincing drama explores female relationships, sisterhood and the troubling uses and effects of violence. It was also one of a handful of contemporary films that responded to the events surrounding the national terrorist collective Baader-Meinhof, a topic that von Trotta would return to in her later work (such as The German Sisters, 1981).

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