Käthe Kruse (2015)

Ever since she was very young, Katharina has wanted to become an actress so she and her mother can escape poverty. She gets her first leading roles at the Lessing Theater in Berlin. In Berlin society, she meets her future husband, the sculptor Max Kruse, and later the young lawyer and photographer David as well. Max and Katharina live together with their child without being married, but Max Kruse is no longer selling any of his work. He asks his partner to travel, since he believes their unconventional marriage is the reason for the decline in commissions. Katharina, her two children, and her mother spend some time at Monte Verità in Switzerland, where they encounter free and alternative ways of life. At the market, a customer notices the rag doll Katharina has made by hand for her daughter Maria and buys it on the spot. From then on, Katharina makes dolls by hand. After her mother’s death, Katharina goes to Graz at Max Kruse’s suggestion; he is working there as a sculptor. There she begins sculpting doll heads out of clay. In 1909, she is allowed to present her innovative dolls at a department store in Berlin and receives good reviews. In 1914, Käthe Kruse opens her own workshop in Bad Kösen. After the First World War, cheap, factory-made imitations of her dolls appear on the market. Käthe Kruse then sues the manufacturer Bing. In court, the judge asks what the difference is between the two doll designs. Käthe Kruse shapes a doll’s head out of clay and places it before the judge.