Marianne and Juliane

Marianne and Juliane (Die bleierne Zeit, 1981) is a West German drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Margarethe von Trotta shaped the story around the real-life Ensslin sisters — one of whom became a founding member of the Red Army Faction — to ask how two women raised by the same pastor father, under the same postwar guilt and Protestant conscience, end up on completely opposite sides of a political divide.

Jutta Lampe plays Juliane, a journalist fighting through print and petition. Barbara Sukowa plays Marianne, who moved underground. When Marianne ends up in solitary confinement, Juliane becomes her only contact outside — and begins to suspect the official version of what is happening to her sister inside the walls.

Von Trotta claimed the Golden Lion at Venice in 1981 for a film with no interest in easy positions — about political violence, family loyalty, and what it costs to keep asking questions when the state would prefer silence. Stream Marianne and Juliane online on iFILM.