Margit Carstensen

Actress

February 29, 1940 (83 years)

† June 1, 2023

Kiel, Germany

Biography

Margit Carstensen (29 February 1940 – 1 June 2023) was a German theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Carstensen was born and raised in the northern German city of Kiel. Upon graduation from the local high school in 1958, she studied acting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. This education led to her first stage appearances in Kleve, Heilbronn, Münster, and Braunschweig. In 1965, Carstensen began a fo…

Filmography

6.2

Scene of the Crime

Margarethe

Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss, crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.

6.1

Derrick

Frau Hauser

Derrick was a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein, who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings.

7.3

Possession

Margit Gluckmeister

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

7.4

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Sekretärin

In late 1920s Berlin, Franz Biberkopf is released from prison and vows to go straight. However, he soon finds himself embroiled in the city’s criminal underworld.

7.3

World on a Wire

Maya Schmidt-Genter

In the future, Simulacron, a computer project simulating reality, encounters strange occurrences after its leader's death. Dr. Stiller questions the sudden disappearance of a friend and wonders if Simulacron holds the answers.

7.7

Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day

Erste Hausfrau

Eight Hours Don't Make a Day (German: Acht Stunden sind kein Tag) is a West German television drama miniseries written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Commissioned by Westdeutscher Rundfunk, it broadcast in five episodes between 1972 and 1973. In Cologne, West Germany, young toolmaker Jochen's world is explored, including those around him: the woman he loves, his eccentric family, and his fellow workers, with whom he bands together to improve conditions on the factory floor.

7.4

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Petra von Kant

Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.

7.1

Chinese Roulette

Ariane Christ

Ariane and Gerhard Christ, a wealthy Munich couple, plan for the weekend on separate trips, lying to the other about their trysts. However, their itineraries are complicated when they both arrive at the family's country home with their respective lovers.

6.3

Satan’s Brew

Andree

A famous poet who hasn't written a word in two years unconsciously plagiarizes the work of Stefan George, while dealing with several mistresses, his dimwitted brother, and a murder investigation.

6.7

Sonnenallee

Director

A group of kids grow up on the short, wrong (east) side of the Sonnenallee in Berlin, right next to one of the few border crossings between East and West reserved for German citizens. The antics of these kids, their families, of the "West German" friends and relatives who come to visit, and of the East German border guards, all serve to illustrate the absurdity of everyday life on the Sonnenallee, and therefore throughout the former East Germany.

5.7

Tenderness of the Wolves

Frau Lindner

A German serial killer preys on boys and young men during the so-called years of crisis between the wars. Based on the true story of Fritz Haarmann, aka the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover.

7.0

Martha

After the death of her abusive father, lonely librarian Martha finds herself caught up in a strange, sadomasochistic relationship with a monstrous husband whom she begins to suspect may be trying to murder her.

6.1

Agnes and His Brothers

Roxy

Focuses on three very different siblings, all searching for happiness. Hans-Jörg is a sex addicted librarian, who is interested in young students. Werner is a successful politician with a dysfunctional family. Agnes, a trans woman, works as a table dancer in a night club. The three brothers just have one thing in common: their longing for a happy life.

6.2

Angry Harvest

Eugenia

In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who's now a farmer of some wealth, discovers the woman, Rosa, and hides her in his cellar. Leon's a middle-aged Catholic bachelor, tormented by his sexual drive. He doesn't tell Rosa he's seen signs her husband is alive, and he begs her to love him. Rosa offers herself to Leon if he'll help a local Jew in hiding who needs money. Leon pays, and love between Rosa and him does develop, but then Leon's peasant subservience and his limited empathy lead to tragedy. At the war's end, a ray of sunshine comes from an unexpected place.

6.8

Hands off Mississippi

Frau Strietzel

Full of anticipation, ten-year-old Emma goes on vacation to her grandma Dolly in the country. Once there, however, the girl learns that old Klipperbusch has died - and his money-hungry nephew Albert is already in the process of converting the inherited estate for profit. And anything he can't use for this is thrown out without further ado. At least Emma manages to save Klipperbusch's beloved mare Mississippi from the slaughterhouse at the last minute: she persuades her grandmother to buy the horse from Albert. Emma is now a proud horse owner. She is all the more surprised when Albert turns up at her door one day and desperately wants Mississippi back. It's clear to Emma and her friends that this guy can't be up to no good...

7.7

Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven

Frau Thälmann

Frau Emma Küsters prepares dinner late one seemingly-ordinary afternoon in her seemingly-ordinary Frankfurt kitchen. She wants to add canned sausages to the stew; her irritating daughter-in-law thinks otherwise. But the point is moot: Ernst Küsters has not only murdered the personnel director at the soap factory where he's employed but succeeded that by committing suicide.

6.3

It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.

Linda Barnes

Paul, a man suffering from cerebral palsy, lives an unfulfilled life in a nursing home. Sitting in his wheelchair, he fantasizes about a life in which people understand him, women find him irresistible, and he is be a force to be reckoned with. He places this imagined self in four different sexual fantasies, each with a different woman.

6.3

Fear of Fear

Margot

After having her second child, a German housewife suffers from postpartum depression before inexplicably falling into a continually misdiagnosed mental state, befuddling her relatives.

6.0

Schlingensief – A Voice That Shook the Silence

Self (archive footage)

Using unpublished and newly digitalised archive footage and film material, Bettina Böhler has brilliantly assembled this film about the life and work of the exceptional artist Christoph Schlingensief, who died in 2010.

5.3

The 120 Days of Bottrop

Self

An eccentric homage to the Rainer Werner Fassbinder days of German filmmaking.