Pleasantville (1998) auf Englisch mit Untertiteln

In the organizer's words:

Pleasantville (1998)

in English with subtitles

Screening and discussion with

Stephanie Weber,

Expert for gender and media education

Prof. Dr. Elke Kleinau (ret.),

University of Cologne

and other speakers

moderated by

Alexandra Eul,

author and moderator

March 13, 2025 | 6:30 p.m.
UFA-Palast Düsseldorf | Worringer Straße 142 | 40210 Düsseldorf

When two teenagers, David and Jennifer, are transported from the 1990s into the seemingly perfect, black-and-white world of a 1950s TV series, they change the lives of the townspeople in Pleasantville forever. The strict, traditional gender roles begin to crumble as the women discover their liberation and develop their own desires and identities. The film illuminates the tension between the conservative ideas of the 1950s and the subsequent social liberation and emancipation, especially of the women's movement.

After the screening, we will draw the bow to the present day and discuss role models, gender stereotypes and conformism:

Stephanie Weber is a gender and media educator and university lecturer specializing in anti-discrimination education. She completed her Master's degree in action-oriented media education at the Technical University of Cologne and the University of Krems in 2016. Since 2022, she has been a lecturer for special tasks in the field of media education and communication at the Department of Social Work at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. In addition to her academic work, she offers workshops on communication, body language and gender issues and is active as a drag performer with the theater group "KINGZ OF POP".

Prof. Dr. Elke Kleinau is a German educational scientist who worked as a professor of historical educational research with a focus on gender history at the University of Cologne until July 2023. In 2017, she received the University Prize of the University of Cologne in the field of research for her outstanding academic achievements. Since 2018, Prof. Kleinau has been active on the board of the German Society for Educational Science, where she is responsible, among other things, for dealing with sexual violence against children and young people in educational contexts. Her research focuses on the history of girls' and women's education in the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of children born of war after the Second World War, colonial literature for children and young people, travel narratives and biographical research.

Alexandra Eul works as an author and moderator of events and political discussions. She was previously an editor at the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, Deutschlandfunk-Nachrichten and Emma. As an Arthur F. Burns Fellow, she reported from Canada and worked as one of the India-Germany media ambassadors in India. She studied theater, film and television studies, politics and psychology at the University of Cologne and trained as a journalist at the Hamburg Media School.

Tickets are allocated on a first come, first served basis . Please reserve only as many tickets as you need.

We will show the film in the original English with subtitles. The subsequent discussion will be held in German.

This event is kindly supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.