200th Anniversary of the Death of Caroline Schlegel-Schelling
Film Presentation with an Introduction and Discussion by and with
Vera Botterbusch

Jena, Romantikerhaus, Unterm Markt 12a 
24 November 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

I am determined to be happy, or: the Art of Living
A film by Vera Botterbusch

          7 September 2009, the 200th anniversary of the death of Caroline Schlegel-Schelling, provides us the occasion to remember this great woman, whose letters constitute one of the treasures of German Romanticism.

          In her 45-minute film, featuring the actors Tanja Kübler, Roman Dudler, Eva Mende,  Silvia Fink, Thomas Koch, Angela Bohrmann, and Oliver Boysen, and originally produced for Bavarian television in 1998, the Munich author and film producer Vera Botterbusch embarks on a search Caroline Schlegel-Schelling. In the film, a student of literary history and a student of philosophy seek out the places where Caroline Schlegel-Schelling lived, from her hometown of Göttingen, to the Harz Mountains, Jena, Weimar, and her final residence in Munich.

          The film seeks to answer the question of what prompted Caroline to become so enthusiastic for the French Revolution (as part of the “Mainz Republic” together with the world traveler Georg Forster) only to end up a prisoner in the fortress of Königstein; how she came to know the Shakespeare translator August Wilhelm Schlegel; and how she eventually left him to marry the young philosopher Friedrich  Wilhelm Schelling, twelve years her junior. In a word: how Caroline was able to lead a life that, in so many ways, was “impossible” during her age, moreover, a life that even today still attests extraordinary courage.

The film was also shown on 7 September 2009 in the Seidlvilla in Munich.