Belina – Music for Peace

“Simply beautiful, deeply sad, and very moving.” (AVIVA – Magazin für Frauen, Sharon Adler, Feb 24, 2021)

“The singer Belina, rediscovered—a stroke of luck.” (Mittelbayerische Zeitung, Michael Scheiner, Feb 26, 2021)

“In the midst of a time shaped by wars and racism—a worthy monument!” (Melodiva, Jan 21, 2021)

“An impressive film about a singer unjustly forgotten.” (Südwestpresse, Nov 25, 2022)

“A richly detailed and excellently researched tribute to a musical life’s work that must be preserved from being forgotten.”

The  Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden unanimously awarded the Golden Seal of Approval  on March 4, 2021, with the following jury statement:

Marc Boettcher’s documentary about the world-music interpreter is utterly captivating—even for viewers who may not have known the singer before. The opening approach—introducing the artist first through what others say about her—works especially well. The film approaches the person and her work with discretion rather than the all-knowing tone of a conventional TV feature, avoiding any sensationalism.

At the same time, the viewer learns not only about her as a person, but also about the traces her life left behind and the influence her work had on others. Boettcher combines archival material with interviews (relatives, friends, and contemporaries) in a distinctive way. He follows her life journey loosely across the decades, while the carefully edited voices of others create a vivid, complex, sometimes contradictory portrait.

The film also repeatedly illuminates the era—such as everyday sexism in both the music industry and on German 1960s television, where Belina experienced many forms of disadvantage and belittlement as a woman. Along the way, you also learn about changes in the music business after the war, the significance of world music and its evolving relationship to political engagement, shifting boundaries between “serious” and “popular” music, and the tensions between artistic ambition and entertainment.

Without ever becoming didactic, the film brings Belina to life again and conveys a genuine sense of a highly talented woman who never made things easy for herself.