Verliebte Feinde

Iris and Peter von Roten are perhaps the most famous, provocative and beautiful couple in recent Swiss history. Iris, a lawyer and feminist from Basel, caused an uproar in 1958 because of her book, Women in the Playpen. In the book, she called for economic, political and sexual equality between men and women, and was fully supported in this by her husband. They applied these convictions in their marital relationship which also included the principles of free love, and this in particular generated resistance from a bigoted society. The mixture of feature film, documentary and archival footage presents a love story comparable to that of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. (Days of European Film)