From Bonnie Parker to Patty Hearst, women have been robbing banks with cunning and callousness. GOETHE FILMS investigates female criminal gumption from Tykwer’s 1998 classic RUN LOLA RUN that launched Franka Potente’s international career to last year’s one-shot Berlin wonder VICTORIA.

BANKLADY (Germany 2013, 118 min), directed by Christian Alvart, with Nadeshda Brennicke, Ken Duken & Charly Hübner

Gisela Werler leads a humdrum middle-class life, no different from that of countless other young women in West Germany in the 1960s. But things change when she meets the charming cab driver and bank robber Hermann. She begs him to take her with him on his bank heists – and proves to be a gifted, if not quite cold-blooded, robber of her own. It’s the beginning of a notorious new duo, the Bonnie and Clyde of suburban Hamburg, and the start of Gisela Werler’s secret life as the “Banklady”.

Based on the true story of Germany’s first female bank robber, BANKLADY relates the sudden transformation of a shy wallflower into one of the most notorious criminals of the 1960s.

"An exciting action drama, garnished with a serving of romance. This film is the German answer to Bonny and Clyde." - Berliner Zeitung