relationships" within the story: "the bond between Hannah, a first-generation Jewish American, and her mother Ruth"; "the...mother-daughter bond between Ruth and her Jewish mother Miriam"; "and...the central relationship between surrogate mother Lena von Eschenbach/Fisher and Ruth." In this, the definition of a mother is stretched from the "biological" standpoint to the "symbolic." Vision The film Vision (2009) chronicles the true tale of Hildegard von Bingen, a nun who stands for another of von Trotta's independent women protagonists—one who fights the patriarchal society of the church by foregoing the established rules of conduct and, upon learning one of her fellow sisters is with child, asks for a different area for the nuns to call their own. In an interview between von Trotta and Damon Smith from Filmmaker Magazine, von Trotta explains her choice for the subject of her film: "When I'm searching for a woman in the very distant past, I look for a woman who is in a way near to my own vision...I am always attracted by a woman who has to fight for her own life and her own reality, who has to get out of a certain situation of imprisonment, to free [herself]. That is perhaps the main theme in all my films." Again, a deep bond is witnessed in this story, as in the rest of von Trotta's films, between Hildegard and a young nun, Richardis. Continuing with the interview, von Trotta says, "It's not a lesbian love! At one point she [Hildegard] says, ‘She is my mother and I'm her mother, I'm her daughter and she's my daughter.’ Hildegard couldn't have children, so in a way Richardis is her daughter and friend and mother [all at once]; it's a very deep love." Von Trotta wanted to make a film with a female protagonist that viewers could relate to instead of looking at her from below, as she clarifies in an interview with Zeitgeist Films: The figures that appeal to me are always strong women who also have moments of weakness; therefore, I never try to make heroines out of them. Instead I show how they fought to find their own way, how they put themselves out there, and how much they had to swallow in order to find themselves. I am fascinated by how they overcome obstacles in order to achieve their goals. Hildegard von Bingen had a dream of founding her own abbey, and