New German Cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, gained notice by producing a number of "small" motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences. These filmmakers included Percy Adlon, Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Fleischmann, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders. As a result of the attention they garnered, they were able to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of these larger films were commercial failures and the movement was heavily dependent on subsidies. By 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.
Volker Schlöndorff is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which also included Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Margarethe von Trotta and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Joseph Vilsmaier was a German film director who began his career as a technician and cameraman. He is internationally known for films such as Comedian Harmonists.
Margarethe von Trotta is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been referred to as a "leading force" of the New German Cinema movement. Von Trotta's extensive body of work has won awards internationally. She was married to and collaborated with director Volker Schlöndorff. Although they made a successful team, von Trotta felt she was seen as secondary to Schlöndorff. Subsequently, she established a solo career for herself and became "Germany's foremost female film director, who has offered the most sustained and successful female variant of Autorenkino in postwar German film history". Certain aspects of von Trotta's work have been compared to Ingmar Bergman's features from the 1960s and 1970s.
Götz George was a German actor, the son of actor couple Berta Drews and Heinrich George. His arguably best-known role is that of Duisburg detective Horst Schimanski in the TV crime series Tatort.
Tatort is a German-language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by the German public-service broadcasting organization ARD for their channel Das Erste, it is unique in its approach in that it is jointly produced by all of the organization's regional members as well as its partnering Austrian and Swiss national public-service broadcasters, whereby every regional station contributes several episodes to a common pool.
Herbert Achternbusch was a German film director, writer and painter. He began as a writer of avant-garde prose, such as the novel Die Alexanderschlacht, before turning to low-budget films. He had a love-hate relationship with Bavaria which showed itself in his work. Some of his controversial films, such as Das Gespenst, were presented at the Berlinale festival.
Fred Breinersdorfer is a German screenwriter, producer and film director.
Horst Schimanski is a homicide detective with a leading role in the German crime television series Tatort, as well as the spin-off Schimanski. Portrayed by Götz George, the character made his debut in the 1981 episode "Duisburg-Ruhrort" and appeared in 29 episodes until 1991. Two episodes, On the Killer's Track (1985) and The Crack Connection (1987), were released in cinemas before they were aired on television. Also notable is the episode "Unter Brüdern" from 1990, which was produced as a crossover with the East German Polizeiruf 110 crime series, in which Schimanski collaborated with two colleagues from the East German Volkspolizei. In 1997, the character got his own show, the loose spin-off Schimanski. In this series, Schimanski is a retired police officer living in Belgium with his longtime girlfriend Marie Claire.
Sergej Moya is a German actor, screenwriter and director. He won the Undine Award for Best Young Leading Actor in the 2005 film Keller – Teenage Wasteland.
Bayerischer Fernsehpreis is an award presented by the government of Bavaria, Germany since 1989. The prize symbol is the "Blue Panther", a figure from the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory. The prize money is €10,000.
Klaus Johannes Behrendt is a German actor. Since 1992 he has starred in the Westdeutscher Rundfunk version of the popular television crime series Tatort; he also starred in the 2008 film Die Bienen – Tödliche Bedrohung.
Sanne Kurz; also Susanne Kurz is a German cinematographer.
Gernot Roll was a German cinematographer, film director and script writer. He collaborated on several films with directors Edgar Reitz and Sönke Wortmann. He was regarded as an expert on literary adaptations and film biographies, such as The Buddenbrooks, filming Thomas Mann's novel in eleven television episodes directed by Franz Peter Wirth, and the same work again in 2008 in the film directed by Heinrich Breloer.
Markus Boysen is a German actor.
Pamela Katz is an American screenwriter and novelist best known for her collaborations with director Margarethe von Trotta, including Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt.
Elisabeth "Eli" Wasserscheid is a German actress.
Gerald Alexander Held is a German actor. He is internationally best known for his historical depictions, as Walther Hewel in the 2004 film Der Untergang, Robert Mohr in the 2005 film Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage and as state prosecutor Siegfried Buback in the 2008 film Der Baader Meinhof Komplex.
Ulrike Krumbiegel is a German actress. She has performed in more than 100 film and TV productions. In her early career, she performed in East German cinema and theatre. After the re-unification of Germany, her career continued with appearances in crime series such as Tatort, and the ZDF series SOKO München. She has also continued to appear in the theatre, featuring in plays by Berthold Brecht, Henrik Ibsen and William Shakespeare.
Rosemarie Fendel (1927–2013) was a German actress who worked on the stage, in film, and in television. She was also a voice actress, and was the voice of notable actresses for German dubs of their work, including Elizabeth Taylor, Jeanne Moreau, and Annie Giradot. She won numerous awards for her work in film and television, and also directed and wrote a few screen productions herself. Her daughter is German actress, Suzanne von Borsody.
