Rosenstrasse (DVD) directed by Margarethe von Trotta

DVD. Run time: 136 mins. Language: German. German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta directs the war drama Rosenstrasse, based on the plight of "mixed marriages" between Jewish men and non-Jewish women during the Holocaust. In contemporary New York, Jewish matriarch Ruth (Jutta Lampe) practices Orthodox mourning traditions for her late husband, to the dismay of her daughter Hannah (Maria Schrader). At the wake, Ruth's cousin Rachel (Carola Regnier) tells Hannah some family secrets that send curious Hannah over to Berlin. She searches out 90-year-old Lena Fischer (Doris Schade), who cared for Ruth during WWII. Flashbacks recall the events of 1943,when Jewish husbands were rounded up and kept in a house on a street called Rosenstrasse. Lena (played by Katja Riemann as a young woman) joins a group of other wives for a week-long protest, where she meets an abandoned seven-year-old named Ruth (played by Svea Lohde as a girl). Rosenstrasse was shown in competition at the 2003 Venice International Film Festival. Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi