German Director and Producers ( in progress. Orders will change)
Total abandoned. Vieleicht kommt ich ja dieses Jahr dazu hier Ordnung rein zu bringen.
Ich nehme nur Personen auf, die in Deutschland aufgewachsen sind und von der dortigen Kultur beeinflusst wurden. Personen die in einem anderen Land aufgewachsen sind fallen raus. Sorry Marc Forster.
Ich nehme nur Personen auf, die in Deutschland aufgewachsen sind und von der dortigen Kultur beeinflusst wurden. Personen die in einem anderen Land aufgewachsen sind fallen raus. Sorry Marc Forster.
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- Writer
- Producer
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Christian Alvart was born in 1974 near Frankfurt, Germany. His strict Christian background frowned upon films and television and in his childhood he was rarely allowed to see a movie. He developed a fascination and love for the forbidden subject matter and quickly became an "expert" in his circle of friends, successfully hiding that he hadn't seen most of the films they were talking about. Instead, he read about films, their making, the novels or the source material they were based on. When he finally was able to get his hands on films he couldn't stop watching, often going to the cinema six times a week. In 1990 he started making small video and Super-8 films with his friends. The group became part of a network of hobby-filmmakers and geeks. Most of his peers were professionally working in lower positions on movies, creating their own projects in their free time. At the age of 19 Alvart became an editor and layout designer with the X-TRO Filmmagazin, soon working his way up to editor-in-chief and eventually even owning the special interest publication. In 1997, he decided to make his own films again and moved with his company Syrreal Entertainment to Berlin. To get a glance at the world of "professional filmmaking" he started as a runner, soon working his way up again to 1st AD on two features within the same year. In 1998, he wrote, produced and directed Curiosity & The Cat, his first 35mm feature film - a low budget thriller which cost only $30K. Many of his friends from the Frankfurt days were part of the project. The film was nominated for the Max-Ophüls-Award and the Prize of the Minister President of the State Saarland. Alvart then worked as a writer for several German features and TV shows. In 2005, he debuted Antibodies, his second work as a director. When it premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival he was named as one of "Five Directors To Watch" as well as the "German New Face of Cinema" at The AFI Festival. Antibodies was also invited to the Edinburgh Film Festival as well as many others, winning numerous awards.gesehen Pandorum und Antikörper- Director
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As the son of a Lufthansa manager, Henckel von Donnersmarck spent his childhood and school years in New York, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main and Brussels, where he passed his international high school diploma in 1991. He then spent two years studying in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) with the following job as a Russian teacher. From 1993 to 1996 he studied PPE philosophy, political science and economics at New College, Oxford. In 1996 he completed a directing internship with Richard Attenborough. In 1997 he began studying feature film directing at the University of Television and Film in Munich. The four-minute short film "Dobermann" was made in 1999, for which he also wrote the book. The work received the rating "Particularly Valuable" and became part of the "Next Generation Role" of "German Cinema in Cannes". At the same time, the work marked his national breakthrough with numerous awards, including the Max Ophüls Prize in 2000.
This was followed by a commissioned work for Universal and Gaumont TV, "Les Mythes Urbains" from 2001. In 2002, he directed the short film "The Templar" in collaboration with producers Max Wiedemann and Quirin Berg. Awarded as "particularly valuable", the five-minute film was shown as part of the Hof Film Festival. The work was awarded, among other things, the Eastman Prize and the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Prize in 2003. Henckel von Donnersmarck became a German star of international cinema with his first feature film "The Lives of Others". In 2006 he was awarded the "Bavarian Film Prize", the "European Film Prize", the "Peace Prize for German Film", the "Quadriga Prize" and a nomination for the "Golden Globe".
On February 25, 2007, "The Lives of Others" was awarded the "Oscar" for "Best Foreign Language Film" at the 79th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, which also marked his international breakthrough as a filmmaker. In 2010 he directed his second feature film, the romantic thriller "The Tourist", starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.
In his private life, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is married to the lawyer Christiane Asschenfeldt and is the father of two children.- Writer
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Director, writer, producer and composer Tom Tykwer was born in 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany. He showed an interest in film-making from childhood, making super 8 films from the age of 11. Among his first jobs was working at a local art-house cinema. Tykwer eventually relocated to Berlin, first working as a film projectionist and then becoming head of programming at the Moviemento Theater.
Tykwer's friend, the director Rosa von Praunheim, encouraged him to experiment with film-making and the result was the short Because (2001). Other short films followed, and in 1993 Tykwer made his first full length feature Deadly Maria (1993). Tykwer's international breakthrough came in 1998 with Run Lola Run (1998), which was a hit with both audiences and critics alike. The film garnered many awards and was the most successful German film of the year.
Subsequent projects include Heaven (2002), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), The International (2009) and the ambitious epic Cloud Atlas (2012).- Director
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Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until reunification). At university, Wenders originally studied to become a physician before switching to philosophy before terminating his studies in 1965. Moving to Paris, he intended to become a painter.
He fell in love with the cinema but failed to gain admission to the French national film school. He supported himself as an engraver while attending movie houses. Upon his return to West Germany in 1967, he was employed by United Artists at its Düsseldorf office before he was accepted by the University of Television and Film Munich school for its autumn 1967 semester, where he remained until 1970. While attending film school, he worked as a newspaper film critic. In addition to shorts, he made a feature film as part of his studies, Summer in the City (1971).
Wenders gained recognition as part of the German New Wave of the 1970s. Other directors that were part of the New German Cinema were Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog. His second feature, a film made from Peter Handke's novel The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972), brought him acclaim, as did Alice in the Cities (1974) and Kings of the Road (1976). It was his 1977 feature The American Friend (1977) ("The American Friend"), starring Dennis Hopper as Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Tom Ripley, that represented his international breakthrough. He was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival for "The American Friend", which was cited as Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review in the United States.
Francis Ford Coppola, as producer, gave Wenders the chance to direct in America, but Hammett (1982) (1982) was a critical and commercial failure. However, his American-made Paris, Texas (1984) (1984) received critical hosannas, winning three awards at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or, and Wenders won a BAFTA for best director. "Paris, Texas" was a prelude to his greatest success, 1987's Wings of Desire (1987) ("Wings of Desire"), which he made back in Germany. The film brought him the best director award at Cannes and was a solid hit, even spawning an egregious Hollywood remake.
Wenders followed it up with a critical and commercial flop in 1991, Until the End of the World (1991) ("Until the End of the World"), though Faraway, So Close! (1993) won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Still, is reputation as a feature film director never quite recovered in the United States after the bomb that was "Until the End of the World." Since the mid-1990s, Wenders has distinguished himself as a non-fiction filmmaker, directing several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and Pina (2011), both of which brought him Oscar nominations.- Director
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A controversial film maker, Wolfgang Petersen has at once been lauded for his professionalism and attention to detail and decried for turning out a string of standard commercial Hollywood blockbusters. The son of a naval officer, Petersen held a lifelong fascination with the sea and naval subjects. He was born in Emden and attended drama school in Hamburg. Having already made some 8 mm films while at school, he proceeded to direct as well as act at the Junges Theater in Hamburg (later renamed the Ernst-Deutsch-Theater). In 1966, he joined the newly formed Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) where he made several short films while simultaneously directing plays in Hamburg. Having caught the eye of German television networks, Petersen went on to direct a string of TV movies which often dealt with such contentious issues as environmental pollution and underage sex. An early success and also his first cinematic release was the taut psychological thriller One or the Other (1974), which starred Jürgen Prochnow and Elke Sommer. This led to more regular assignments on the ever-popular detective series Tatort (1970) for which Petersen directed six episodes.
In 1980, Petersen was commissioned by Bavaria Studios to direct Das Boot (1981), based on a 1971 novel by Lothar G. Buchheim. Filmed on a budget of 32 million DM, it became the most realistic and harrowing portrayal of life aboard a submarine in wartime filmed to date, the action of 'Das Boot' being set during the battle of the North Atlantic and culminating in an abortive attempt to cross the British-controlled strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. The film concluded with a bitterly ironic climax. 'Das Boot' (re-released as a miniseries in 1985) starred Petersen's long-standing collaborator Jürgen Prochnow (who became an international star as a result) and was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Director and Best Writing). In its wake, Petersen directed and co-wrote a children's fantasy --again filmed at the Bavaria facilities near Munich-- The NeverEnding Story (1984). Though successful at the box-office (especially in Germany), it did not attract universal critical appeal. By contrast, his second English-language film, the science fiction drama Enemy Mine (1985) was only a modest financial success but rated better in reviews over the years, the Los Angeles Times describing it as "surprisingly coherent, surprisingly enjoyable".
In 1987, Petersen moved to Santa Monica, California. For a while, he was part of an A-list of directors tasked with helming mega-budget blockbusters starring big name actors like Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Most were palpable box-office hits, especially In the Line of Fire (1993) (often cited as his best Hollywood enterprise), Air Force One (1997) and the historical epic Troy (2004), which grossed $497.4 million worldwide. Reviewer reception for Troy tended to be lukewarm to cool, even more so with the disaster movies Outbreak (1995) and The Perfect Storm (2000), the latter criticized as suffering from "a lack of any actual drama or characterization". Attracting even lower critical esteem was Petersen's remake of Irwin Allen 's original 1972 disaster movie, Poseidon (2006). It ended up both a box office and a critical flop in the U.S. with only the superior CGI special effects gaining plaudits. Poseidon was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake. Following this debacle, Petersen withdrew from Hollywood and had a decade-long hiatus before directing his final picture, the German heist drama Vier gegen die Bank (2016).
Petersen's second wife was the assistant director and script supervisor Maria-Antoinette Borgel with whom he had a son. Petersen died from pancreatic cancer on August 12 2022 in Brentwood, California.- Writer
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Roland Emmerich is a German film director and producer of blockbuster films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Godzilla (1998), Independence Day (1996) and The Patriot (2000). Before fame, he originally wanted to be a production designer, but decided to be a director, after watching the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Emmerich began his career in his native Germany. In his youth, he pursued painting and sculpting. While enrolled in the director's program at film school in Munich, his student film The Noah's Ark Principle (1984) went on to open the 1984 Berlin Film Festival. The feature became a huge success and was sold to more than 20 countries. In an amazing trivia, he directed his first feature, The Noah's Ark Principle (1984), in 1984. He is openly gay and a campaigner for the LGBT community.
A director/writer/producer with a flair for special effects-driven action, German Roland Emmerich made himself at home in blockbuster-hungry 1990s Hollywood. Born and educated in West Germany, Emmerich studied production design as well as direction at the Munich Film and Television School. After his student film, The Noah's Ark Principle, debuted at the 1984 Berlin Film Festival, Emmerich formed his production company Centropolis and directed supernatural fantasies Making Contact (1986) and Ghost Chase (1987), and the straight-to-video action film Moon 44 (1990). On the latter, he met actor Dean Devlin who subsequently switched jobs to become Emmerich's writing and producing partner once Emmerich set up shop in Hollywood.
After making his solo Hollywood debut directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cyborg action fest Universal Soldier (1992), Emmerich and Devlin revealed a talent for conjuring A-level action spectacles out of B-movie scenarios with their first film together, Stargate (1994). A space odyssey mixing ancient Egyptiana and high-tech wizardry, Stargate became an unexpected hit. Emmerich hit his blockbuster stride with his next film, Independence Day (1996). With its eye-popping destruction of major cities and climactic annihilation of a spacecraft via portable computer, Independence Day blew away its summer movie competition on the strength of its visual flash. Geared to repeat with the endlessly- and creatively-hyped version of Godzilla (1998), Emmerich instead faced the conundrum of directing a $100 million grossing film that did not live up to box office expectations. Emmerich and Devlin next turned their epic visions to the decidedly lower-tech (but still CGI-enhanced) action of the American Revolution in the Mel Gibson summer vehicle The Patriot (2000).- Director
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Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has won numerous national and international awards for his poetic feature and documentary films.- Director
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Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage. He began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates from this time. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, "Sensin - You're The One!" ("Sensin - Du bist es!"), which received the Audience Award at the Hamburg International Short Film Festival. His second short film, "Weed" ("Getürkt", 1996), received several national and international festival prizes. His first full length feature film, "Short Sharp Shock" ("Kurz und schmerzlos", 1998) won the Bronze Leopard at Locarno and the Bavarian Film Award (Best Young Director) in 1998. His other films include: "In July" ("Im Juli", 2000), "Wir haben vergessen zurückzukehren" (2001), "Solino" (2002), the Berlinale Golden Bear-winner and winner of the German and European Film Awards "Head-On" ("Gegen die Wand", 2003), and "Crossing the Bridge - The Sound of Istanbul" (2005).- Director
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Born in 1973 in Hannover, Germany, Dennis Gansel studied at Munich Film School HFF. Remarkably his first feature length movie Das Phantom (2000) was shot while he was still studying. Between his movies Girls on Top (2001), Before the Fall (2004) and The Wave (2008) he spent a long time struggling for the budget of the films. During these times he shot commercials. Dennis Gansel lives in Berlin.- Producer
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As a youth, he produced a number of short films on Super 8 and video. After short stints as guest auditor at Filmacademy Vienna and Filmhochschule Munich, Boll studied literature and economics in Cologne and Siegen. He graduated from university in 1995 with a doctorate in literature. From 1995-2000, he was a producer and director with Taunus Film-Produktions GmbH. Boll was Chief Executive Officer of Bolu Filmproduction and Distribution GmbH which he founded in 1992. He continued to direct, write and produce feature films until 2016. His main companies are Event Films in Vancouver and Bolu Film in Germany. A longtime resident of Canada, Boll owned the restaurant "Bauhaus" in Vancouver from 2015 to 2020. Returned to Germany and resumed filming in 2020.- Actor
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Sebastian Schipper was born on 8 May 1968 in Hanover, Lower Saxony, West Germany. He is an actor and director, known for Victoria (2015), Roads (2019) and The English Patient (1996).siehe Victoria- Writer
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Hans-Christian Schmid was born on 19 August 1965 in Altötting, Bavaria, Germany. He is a writer and director, known for 23 (1998), Storm (2009) and Lichter (2003).- Writer
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Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and even antigay, he completed 44 projects between 1966 and 1982, the majority of which can be characterized as highly intelligent social melodramas. His prodigious output was matched by a wild, self-destructive libertinage that earned him a reputation as the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema (as well as its central figure.) Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence. Some find his cinema needlessly controversial and avant-garde; others accuse him of surrendering to the Hollywood ethos. It is best said that he drew forth strong emotional reactions from all he encountered, both in his personal and professional lives, and this provocative nature can be experienced posthumously through reviewing his artistic legacy.
Fassbinder was born into a bourgeois Bavarian family in 1945. His father was a doctor and his mother a translator. In order to have time for her work, his mother frequently sent him the movies, a practice that gave birth to his obsession with the medium. Later in life, he would claim that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. At the age of 15, Fassbinder defiantly declared his homosexuality, soon after which he left school and took a job. He studied theater in the mid-sixties at the Fridl-Leonhard Studio in Munich and joined the Action Theater (aka, Anti-Theater) in 1967. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema (e.g., Schlöndorff, Herzog and Wenders) who started out making movies, Fassbinder acquired an extensive stage background that is evident throughout his work. Additionally, he learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theater management. This versatility later surfaced in his films where, in addition to some of the aforementioned responsibilities, Fassbinder served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor. [So boundless was his energy, in fact, that he appeared in 30 projects of other directors.] In his theater years, he also developed a repertory company that included his mother, two of his wives and various male and female lovers. Coupled with his ability to serve in nearly any crew capacity, this gave him the ability to produce his films quickly and on extremely low budgets.
Success was not immediate for Fassbinder. His first feature length film, a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) was greeted by catcalls at the Berlin Film Festival. His next piece, Katzelmacher (1969), was a minor critical success, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. It featured Jorgos, an emigrant from Greece, who encounters violent xenophobic slackers in moving into an all-German neighborhood. This kind of social criticism, featuring alienated characters unable to escape the forces of oppression, is a constant throughout Fassbinder's diverse oeuvre. In subsequent years, he made such controversial films about human savagery such as Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971) and Whity (1971) before scoring his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972). This moving portrait of a street vendor crushed by the betrayal and his own futility is considered a masterpiece, as is his first international success Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) (Fear Eats the Soul). With a wider audience for his efforts, however, some critics contend that Fassbinder began to sell out with big budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen (1981) and Lola (1981). In retrospect, however, it seems that the added fame simply enabled Fassbinder to explore various kinds of filmmaking, including such "private" works as In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) and The Third Generation (1979), two films about individual experience and feelings. His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (The Marriage of Maria Braun), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II. Other notable movies include The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976) and Querelle (1982), all focused on gay and lesbian themes and frequently with a strongly pornographic edge.
His death is a perfect picture of the man and his legend. On the night of June 10, 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, the unfinished script for a version of Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. So boundless was his drive and creativity that, throughout his downward spiral and even in the moment of his death, Fassbinder never ceased to be productive.- Writer
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Dörrie completed her schooling at a humanistic high school, from which she graduated in 1973 with her Abitur. In the same year he spent two years in the USA. There she studied film and acting at the Drama Department at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. This was followed by studies at the New School of Social Research in New York. She also worked in cafés and as a projectionist in the Goethe House in New York. In 1975 she returned to Germany. She then studied at the University of Television and Film in Munich. At the same time, she worked as a film critic journalist for the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Her final film is entitled "The First Waltz" and was broadcast on Bavarian television as "Max and Sandie". Doris Dörrie made various documentaries until 1982. In 1983 she made her first feature film in Munich called "Mitten ins Herz". Three years later she had a cinema hit with the title "Men". The well-known actors Uwe Ochsenknecht and Heiner Lauterbach star in the chaotic relationship comedy. The play became the most successful German film of 1986. Doris Dörrie was married to Helge Weindler from 1988 to 1996. Their daughter Carla was born in 1990.
In 1991 she had another cinema success with the title "Happy Birthday, Turk". She filmed the novel by the German writer Jakob Arjouni, a novel in the Kayankaya series. The witty film is in the tradition of classic detective films and tells the story of the search for a missing person in the Frankfurt milieu. The Turkish private detective Kayankaya, played by Hansa Czypionka, experiences police corruption. In 1994, Doris Dörrie shot the comedy film "Nobody Loves Me" with Maria Schrader. This production is about personal happiness. The work was honored with the silver film ribbon, the leading actress Maria Schrader with the gold film ribbon.
Her other film works include "No Trace of Romanticism" from 1980, "Between" from 1981, "Love in Germany" from 1989 and "Enlightenment Guaranteed" from 1999. Among all her film works The director also wrote the script herself. The films were often cast with well-known actors such as Senta Berger, Gottfried John or Uwe Ochsenknecht. She also shot the documentary entitled "What can it be?" In addition to her role behind the camera, she also performed guest roles in front of the camera. For example, she played in the film "The Leading Man" from 1977 or in "King Kong's Fist" and in "Back to Go" from 2000.
In addition to her film work, Doris Dörrie realized literary projects. This is how the short stories entitled "Love, Pain and All the Damned Stuff" and "What Do You Want from Me?" were created. She also wrote the short story "The Man of My Dreams" and the novel "What Do We Do Now?" In 1991 her collection of short stories entitled "Forever and Ever" was created. The 300-page work was well received by critics. In 2002 her film work entitled "Naked" and her novel "Happy" followed. In 2005 she staged Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Rigoletto" at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under the musical direction of Zubin Mehta.
In the same year, 2005, she directed Giacomo Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" at the Gärtnerplatztheater. At the Salzburg Festival in 2006 she staged Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "La finta Giardiniera".- Writer
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Robert Schwentke was born in 1968 in Stuttgart, Germany. He is a writer and director, known for The Captain (2017), RED (2010) and Eierdiebe (2003).- Director
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Christoph Schlingensief was born on 24 October 1960 in Oberhausen, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Menu total (1986), Egomania: Island Without Hope (1986) and 100 Jahre Adolf Hitler - Die letzte Stunde im Führerbunker (1989). He was married to Aino Laberenz. He died on 21 August 2010 in Berlin, Germany.- Director
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F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air force, surviving several crashes without any severe injuries.
One of Murnau's acclaimed works is the 1922 film Nosferatu, an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Although not a commercial success due to copyright issues with Stoker's novel, the film is considered a masterpiece of Expressionist film.
He later emigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined the Fox Studio and made three films: Sunrise (1927), 4 Devils (1928) and City Girl (1930). The first of these three is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.
In 1931 Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu (1931) with documentary film pioneer Robert J. Flaherty, who left after artistic disputes with Murnau, who had to finish the movie on his own. A week prior to the opening of the film Tabu, Murnau died in a Santa Barbara hospital from injuries he had received in an automobile accident that occurred along the Pacific Coast Highway near Rincon Beach, southeast of Santa Barbara. Only 11 people attended his funeral. Among them were Robert J. Flaherty, Emil Jannings, Greta Garbo and Fritz Lang, who delivered the eulogy.
Of the 21 films Murnau directed, eight are considered to be completely lost.
In July 2015 Murnau's grave was broken into, the remains disturbed and the skull removed by persons unknown. Wax residue was reportedly found at the site, leading some to speculate that candles had been lit, perhaps with an occult or ceremonial significance. As this disturbance was not an isolated incident, the cemetery managers are considering sealing the grave.- Director
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Uli Edel was born on 11 April 1947 in Neuenburg am Rhein, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008), Christiane F. (1981) and Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga (2013).- Director
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Thomas Jahn was born on 9 July 1965 in Hückelhoven, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997), Professor T. (2017) and Kai Rabe gegen die Vatikankiller (1998).- Director
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Born in Germany, to a Palestinian father and German mother, Lexi Alexander, a former World Kickboxing Champion and USMC close-quarter-combat instructor, worked her way up from stunt woman to Oscar-nominated director with her first short film Johnny Flynton, a drama about a boxer. Eager to learn a common language with actors, Lexi studied at the Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory before helming feature films including the SXSW Jury & Audience Award winning drama Green Street Hooligans, Marvel's Punisher: War Zone and Lifted. She directed episodes for TV shows such as ARROW, SUPERGIRL, SWAT and AMERICAN GOTHIC and has recently sold a movie to Blumhouse Productions & Netflix International. Lexi continues to be an avid martial artist and is currently a passionate student of the Russian style Systema.- Director
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Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1957. In his teens he left high school and worked as a cooker in a boat.
Then he studied painting and graphism in the Academy of arts in Hamburg where he also started experimenting with video and photography. Those experimental movies attracted the attention of some producers of the German TV.
Hirschbiegel became popular thanks to his tv movies (especially dramas and thrillers). In 2001 he shot his first movie for cinema: "Das Experiment" that won several awards in many festivals all around the world. That movie is an intense investigation of the aggressive behaviour in a simulated prison environment.
His second movie, "Mein letzter Film", released in 2002, is a 90 minutes' monologue about a woman in her fifties who wants to re-start his life.
In 2004 "Downfall" was released, his third movie, and till now his greatest success. "Downfall" is about the last 12 days of life of Adolf Hitler narrated out of the sight of her young secretary, Traudl Junge. That movie has stirred up much controversy because it portrays Hitler and the Nazis as human beings and not just as evil.
Hirschbiegel has demonstrated in all his movies to be an specialist of dramas set in claustrophobic environments.Der Untergang, Das Experiment- Director
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Uli Edel was born on 11 April 1947 in Neuenburg am Rhein, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008), Christiane F. (1981) and Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga (2013).Baader Meinhof Complex- Director
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Anno Saul was born on 14 November 1963 in Bonn, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Kebab Connection (2004), The Door (2009) and Grüne Wüste (1999).Wo ist Fred?- Actor
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Directed his first movie at the age of 21. Studied at the 'Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie' (DFFB) til 1989. Founded the Boje Buck Filmproduktion in 1991. Founded the Boje Buck Produktion GmbH together with Claus Boje in 1992.Die Vermessung der Welt- Director
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Hanns Christian Müller was born on 14 April 1949 in Munich, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Kehraus (1983), Fast wia im richtigen Leben (1979) and Germanikus (2004). He was previously married to Gisela Schneeberger.Germanikus- Director
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Sven Taddicken was born in 1974 in Hamburg, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Mein Bruder, der Vampir (2001), Emmas Glück (2006) and Schäfchen zählen (2000).- Editor
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Markus Goller was born on 29 June 1969 in Munich, Germany. He is an editor and director, known for 25 km/h (2018), My Brother Simple (2017) and Eine ganz heiße Nummer (2011). He is married to Katja von Garnier. They have one child.- Director
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Roland Suso Richter was born on 7 January 1961 in Marburg, Hesse, Germany. He is a director and production manager, known for The Tunnel (2001), Eine Hand Voll Gras (2000) and Sara Amerika (1999).- Director
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Ralf Huettner was born on 29 November 1954 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Das Mädchen mit den Feuerzeugen (1987), Die Musterknaben (1997) and Um die 30 (1995).- Director
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Tim Fehlbaum was born in 1982 in Basel, Basel, Switzerland. He is a director and writer, known for The Colony (2021), Hell (2011) and September 5 (2024).- Writer
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- Art Director
Christian Zübert was born on 27 August 1973 in Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. Christian is a writer and director, known for Lammbock (2001), Der Schatz der weißen Falken (2005) and Three Quarter Moon (2011).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Oskar Roehler was born on 21 January 1959 in Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany. He is a writer and director, known for Die Unberührbare (2000), Silvester Countdown (1997) and Agnes and His Brothers (2004). He has been married to Alexandra Fischer-Roehler since August 2000.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Sönke Wortmann was born on 25 August 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is a director and actor, known for The Miracle of Bern (2003), Maybe... Maybe Not (1994) and Drei D (1988). He has been married to Cecilia Kunz since May 2002. They have three children.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world cinema, Haneke wrote and directed films in several languages: French, German and English, working with a great variety of actors, such as Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Toby Jones, Ülrich Muhe, Arno Frisch and the list goes on.
This grand figure from Austrian cinema was born in Germany on 23 March 1942, from a German father and an Austrian mother, with both parents being from the artistic world working as actors, a career that Michael also tried but without much success. At the University of Vienna he studied drama, philosophy and psychology, and after graduation he went on to become a film critic and TV editor. His career behind camera started with After Liverpool (1974), which he wrote and directed. He went on to direct five more TV films and two episodes from the miniseries "Lemminge" (1979)_.
The years spent on television works prompted him to finally direct his first cinema feature, during his early 40's, which is somewhat unusual for film directors. But it was worth waiting. In The Seventh Continent (1989), Haneke establishes the foundation of what his future cinema would be about: a cinema that doesn't provides answers but one that dares to throw more and more questions, a cinema that reflects and analyses the human condition in its darkest and unexpected ways outside of any Hollywood formula. Films that exist to confront audiences and not comfort them. In it, Haneke deals with the duality of social values vs. internal values while exposing an apparent perfect family that runs into physical and material disintegration for reasons unknown. It was the first time a film of his was sent to the Cannes Film Festival (out of competition lineup) but he managed to cause some commotion in the audience with polemic scenes that were meant to extract all possible reactions from the crowd.
His next ventures at the decade's turn was in dealing with disturbed youth and the alienation they have in separating reality from fiction, trying to intersect both to drastic results. In Benny's Video (1992), it's the disturbing story of a teen boy who experiences killing for the first time capturing the murder on tape, impressed by the power of detachment that films and videos can cause to people; and later on the highly controversial Funny Games (1997), where two teens hold a family hostage to play sadistic games just for their own sick amusement. The film cemented Haneke's name as one of the greatest authors of his generation but sparkled a great debate with its themes of violence, sadism and the influence those things have in audiences. At the 1997's Cannes Film Festival, it was the film that had the most walk-out's by the audience. In between both films, he released 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) and Kafka's The Castle (1997), the latter being one of the rare times when Haneke developed an adapted work.
In the 2000's, he strongly continued in producing more outstanding works prone to debate and reflection in what would become his most prolific decade with the following films: Code Unknown (2000), The Piano Teacher (2001), Time of the Wolf (2003), Caché (2005), an American remake shot-by shot of Funny Games (2007) and The White Ribbon (2009). His study about romance versus masochism in The Piano Teacher (2001) was an intense work, with powerful performances by Isabelle Huppert and Benoit Magimel, that the Cannes jury in the year were so impressed that Haneke managed to actually reverse their award rules where it was decided that film entries at the festival couldn't win more than one main award (the two lead actors won awards and Haneke got the Grand Prize of the Jury, just lost the Palme d'Or). With The White Ribbon (2009), an enigmatic black-and-white masterpiece following the inception of Nazism in this pre WWI and WWII story focusing on repressed children living in this small village where strange events happen all the time and without any possible reasoning, Haneke conquered the world and audiences with an artistic and daring work that won his first Palme d'Or a Golden Globe as Best Foreign Language Film and received an Oscar nomination for the same category plus the cinematography work of Christian Berger.
2012 was the year that marked his supremacy in the film world with the release of the bold and beautiful Amour (2012), a love story with powerful real drama and one where Haneke removed most of his usual dark characteristics to present more quiet and calm elements without losing input in creating controversy. The touching story of George and Anne provided one the greatest moments of that year and earned Haneke his second and consecutive Palme d'Or at Cannes and his first Oscar nominations for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay - and it was one of the several nominees for Best Picture Oscar, winning as Best Foreign Language Film.
After abandoning a flash-mob film project, he returned to the screen with Happy End (2017), a film dealing with the refugee crisis in Europe and again he debuted his film at Cannes, receiving mildly positive reviews.
Besides his film work, Haneke also directs theatre productions, from drama to opera, from Così fan tutte to Don Giovanni.