MEET THE FACES of German film during this year’s Berlinale

For years, since 2016 to be pre­cise, „GERMAN FILMS”, the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­ing com­pa­ny for Ger­man films, has man­aged to bring togeth­er some of the most impor­tant mak­ers of Ger­man films for an event com­plete with dis­cus­sion pan­el and inter­views: MEET THE FACES. The 2023 edi­tion was mod­er­at­ed by Diana Lod­der­hose, edi­tor at Dead­line Hol­ly­wood mag­a­zine. This time, the pan­el includ­ed “sev­en lit­er­al­ly sen­sa­tion­al per­son­al­i­ties to Ger­man cin­e­ma”, as Ger­man Films proud­ly notes:

Sönke Andresen – Writer

Welket Bun­gué – Actor

Dascha Dauen­hauer – Com­pos­er

Ali­son Kuhn – Direc­tor, Actor, Writer

Lukas Nathrath – Direc­tor, Actor, Writer

Reza Memari – Writer, Direc­tor

Lena Urzen­dowsky – Actor

“Tal­ent pro­mo­tion is an impor­tant part of Ger­man Films’ work that is gain­ing atten­tion and rel­e­vance over the last years. Ger­man Films is not only about pro­mot­ing and sup­port­ing Ger­man films, but also about spot­light­ing the pro­fes­sion­als who make them,” Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Simone Bau­mann declares. „The focus of this year’s FACE TO FACE WITH GERMAN FILMS cam­paign is on mul­ti­fac­eted tal­ents rep­re­sent­ing the Ger­man film indus­try with the goal of a sus­tain­able and diverse future. We are proud to be able to present sev­en tal­ent­ed film­mak­ers as ambas­sadors of our cam­paign this year. It is our aim to increase their vis­i­bil­i­ty and to strength­en the pro­mo­tion of their projects abroad. With their dif­fer­ent biogra­phies and pro­fes­sion­al back­grounds, they have the poten­tial to cross bor­ders and rep­re­sent the cre­ativ­i­ty of film inter­na­tion­al­ly,” Simone Bau­mann explains. These per­son­al­i­ties, all of whom have already made a great con­tri­bu­tion to Ger­man film, answered ques­tions from Diana Lod­der­hose.

So let’s start with writer Sönke Andresen. He was born in Ham­burg in 1977, and ini­tial­ly stud­ied Screen­writ­ing at the Ger­man Insti­tute for Lit­er­a­ture in Leipzig in Sax­ony before com­plet­ing teacher train­ing for Ger­man at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utrecht, not far from Ams­ter­dam. In the year 2007, he received a schol­ar­ship to attend a screen­writ­ing lab in Munich, the so called “Drehbuch­w­erk­statt”, a script work­shop, and has since worked as a screen­writer for film and TV series. In addi­tion, he writes plays for the the­atre as well. Andresen has col­lab­o­rat­ed on a reg­u­lar basis with the direc­tor Axel Ranisch since the inter­na­tion­al­ly mul­ti-award-win­ning film I FEEL LIKE DISCO (2013). They also worked togeth­er on two SCENE OF THE CRIME episodes and the TV film FAMILIE LOTZMANN AUF DEN BARRIKADEN (2019). In addi­tion, Andresen has fre­quent­ly been involved as a writer on var­i­ous series such as the sec­ond sea­son of OTHER PARENTS in 2019 – who won an Grimme award, an impor­tant TV award, and which earned him a nom­i­na­tion for the Ger­man Com­e­dy Award in 2020. 2023 will see the Ger­man the­atri­cal releas­es of the screen adap­ta­tion of Isabel Bogdan’s nov­el THE PEACOCK, star­ring a great cast with Lavinia Wil­son, Jür­gen Vogel and Tom Schilling, for which he wrote the screen­play togeth­er with Christoph Math­ieu, as well as the opera film ORPHEA IN LOVE, which is anoth­er col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ranisch. They also worked togeth­er on adapt­ing Ranisch’s nov­el NACKT ÜBER BERLIN as a series to also be pre­miered this year. So some excit­ing work to expect in the com­ing months and years.

Next on the pan­el is Welket Bun­gué. He is a Berlin based actor, born in Guinea-Bis­sau in 1988, with a lot of inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence. His cross-cul­tur­al edu­ca­tion, from Africa, Europe, and Brazil, made him into a cross-nation­al, mul­ti­tal­ent­ed artist. Bun­gué is co-founder of a Paris pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny and he holds a degree in Act­ing The­atre and a post-grad­u­ate degree in Per­for­mance Arts. He has been a mem­ber of the Por­tuguese Film Acad­e­my since 2015, a mem­ber of the Deutsche Fil­makademie since 2020, an asso­ciate mem­ber of the Euro­pean Film Acad­e­my since 2021, and since 2021, his films have been includ­ed in the col­lec­tion of the Arse­nal-Insti­tute for Film and Video Art (Berlin). As an actor, he has par­tic­i­pat­ed in more than 40 films and series, amongst them Ivo Ferreira’s his­tor­i­cal dra­ma LETTERS FROM WAR (2016) as well as Marce­lo Caetano’s high­ly acclaimed com­ing of age-dra­ma BODY ELECTRIC (2017) and David Cronenberg’s new film CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (2022). In 2020, Welket earned a Sil­ver Bear nom­i­na­tion for his lead role in BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ at the Berli­nale, as well as nom­i­na­tions for „Best Lead Actor” at the Ger­man Film Acad­e­my (Deutsch­er Film­preis) and „Best Actor” at Stock­holm Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. He has a strong con­nec­tion with the Berli­nale, hav­ing pre­miered three films there, and was invit­ed to become a Berli­nale Tal­ent in 2021, where he pre­sent­ed a mas­ter­class. That same year, he debuted as a direc­tor with the world pre­mière of his short film MUDANÇA at the Berli­nale Forum Expand­ed.

Dascha Dauen­hauer is a film com­pos­er. She was born in Moscow and began com­pos­ing and play­ing the piano as a child and was taught in com­po­si­tion by Shatkovsky at the Moscow Music Con­ser­va­to­ry. After her fam­i­ly moved to Berlin, she attend­ed the “Acad­e­my for excep­tion­al­ly gift­ed chil­dren and young peo­ple” and was accept­ed as a young stu­dent at the “Hanns Eisler” Acad­e­my of Music in Berlin at the age of twelve. Dauen­hauer ear­ly began to com­pose her own pieces, her orches­tra piece SINFONIETTA had its world pre­mière at the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic in 2004. She grad­u­at­ed with a degree in music the­o­ry from the UDK Berlin and stud­ied film music for a master’s degree at the Film Uni­ver­si­ty Babels­berg. Her film com­pos­ing career began in 2015. The film JIBRIL by Hen­ri­ka Kull had its pre­mière at Berli­nale in 2018, just like BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ in 2020 – which is one of my per­son­al favourites of Ger­man cin­e­ma in the last years. EVOLUTION was select­ed for Cannes Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val 2021. In 2018, she won the Ger­man Film Music Award in the cat­e­gories “Best short film” and “New­com­er”. In 2020, she won the Ger­man Film Award as well as the Euro­pean Film Award for her music for BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. Most recent­ly, Dauen­hauer com­posed the music for the ZDF mini-series THE SWARM, which just pre­miered at Berli­nale, as well as the film GOLDA (with Helen Mir­ren as Gol­da Meir) direct­ed by Guy Nat­tiv.

Ali­son Kuhn (born in Saar­brück­en in 1995) is active in var­i­ous areas of movie busi­ness: She is a direc­tor, an actor and a writer. She grad­u­at­ed in Babels­berg with a Bach­e­lor of Fine Arts in 2022. She is suc­cess­ful in all her occu­pa­tions. For instance, she pub­lished her first texts as ear­ly as 2016 and won the Fed­er­al Award for young poet­ry, IYRIX, in 2017. She immersed her­self ear­ly on in Cologne’s off-the­atre scene and, from 2014 onwards, appeared as an actor in a wide vari­ety of roles in tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tions and short or fea­ture films. Ali­son Kuhn received many awards for her doc­u­men­tary THE CASE YOU (2020); the film was screened at inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­vals and received the Ger­man Doc­u­men­tary Film Prize for Art and Cul­ture. THE CASE YOU was high­ly praised by crit­ics because the direc­tor suc­ceeds impres­sive­ly in mak­ing the abuse of pow­er and sex­u­al exploita­tion both vis­i­ble and com­pre­hen­si­ble. Ali­son Kuhn’s short film FLUFFY TALES (2021) was nom­i­nat­ed for the Ger­man Short Film Award and screened as part of the Next Gen­er­a­tion Short Tiger Pro­gramme in Cannes. Her lat­est medi­um-length fea­ture, THE SWARMERS, was nom­i­nat­ed for the First Steps Award and has been screened at sev­er­al Oscar®-qualifying film fes­ti­vals. Kuhn also direct­ed three episodes of DRUCK in 2022 and is cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for two fea­ture films and a mini-series set to air in 2023.

Reza Memari is a writer and direc­tor, and he found­ed a com­pa­ny called Tele­scope Ani­ma­tion. Born in Iran and raised in Bavaria, he stud­ied Mar­ket­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and worked for a major US video games pub­lish­er before enter­ing the film indus­try as an edi­tor. Memari’s first ani­mat­ed fea­ture film RICHARD THE STORK (“A STORK’S JOURNEY”), which he wrote, co-direct­ed and edit­ed, pre­miered at the 2017 Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. This heart­felt adven­ture about a spar­row who thinks he’s a stork was com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful world­wide and received numer­ous awards, includ­ing the Bavar­i­an Film Award. In 2018, Memari co-found­ed the Berlin-based movie pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Tele­scope Ani­ma­tion togeth­er with the pro­duc­er Maite Woköck. Memari launched Tele­scope Ani­ma­tion Stu­dios in Ham­burg, and lat­er Tele­scope Game Stu­dios in Bran­den­burg. With these, he uses real-time ren­der­ing tech­nol­o­gy Unre­al Engine to cre­ate trans­me­dia pro­duc­tions like ani­mat­ed fea­ture films, series, AR/VR expe­ri­ences and games that are inter­con­nect­ed. His new project, THE LAST WHALE SINGER, fol­lows a hump­back whale sav­ing oceans with his mys­ti­cal song and includes an ani­mat­ed fea­ture film, game, and TV series to be released from 2026–2027. Memari sees ani­ma­tion as a medi­um for diverse sto­ries, not just for chil­dren.

Lukas Nathrath stud­ied film direct­ing at the Ham­burg Media School from 2016 to 2019. He was invit­ed to the Next Gen­er­a­tion Short Tiger pro­gram of Ger­man Films at the 2018 Fes­ti­val de Cannes with his short film MORALE (MIT IM BUND). His string of suc­cess con­tin­ued in 2019, as his grad­u­a­tion film KIPPA received sev­er­al prizes and ran on dozens of fes­ti­vals. Before film school, Nathrath stud­ied North Amer­i­can Stud­ies with a focus on film in Munich; he also attend­ed a semes­ter in act­ing at the Lon­don Acad­e­my of Music and Dra­mat­ic Art. Since being a teenag­er, he has appeared as an actor in var­i­ous film and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tions. In 2020, Lukas Nathrath was invit­ed to the Film­mak­ers Res­i­den­cy Basel, and the fol­low­ing year, he was a par­tic­i­pant at the esteemed screen­writ­ing lab Drehbuch­w­erk­statt Munich. He also worked as 2^nd-unit-direc­tor on high-end series projects in both 2021 and 2022. In 2022, Nathrath’s first fea­ture film ONE LAST EVENING, shot in just sev­en days, won the top prize in the First Look sec­tion at the Locarno Film Fes­ti­val. He direct­ed and pro­duced the film and co-wrote the screen­play with Sebas­t­ian Jakob Dop­pel­bauer. The tragi­com­e­dy was at Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam 2023 and at Film­fes­ti­val Max Ophüls Prize.

One of my favourite young Ger­man actors is Lena Urzen­dowsky, born in 2000. She played the lead role in the com­ing-of-age movie COCOON, which cel­e­brat­ed its world pre­mière open­ing the Gen­er­a­tion+ sec­tion at the Berli­nale 2020. Along­side direc­tor Leonie Krip­pen­dorff, Urzen­dowsky was hon­oured with the Bavar­i­an Film Prize and the inter­na­tion­al­ly renowned Iris Prize for her act­ing per­for­mance. In the fairy tale adap­ta­tion, THE SNOW QUEEN (2014), she made her debut in front of the cam­era, fol­lowed by her first lead­ing role in TV pro­duc­tion THE WHITE RABBIT (2016) by Flo­ri­an Schwarz. For her per­for­mance in this film, she was award­ed the Grimme Prize, the Guen­ther Rohrbach Film Prize and the Guen­ther Strack Tele­vi­sion Prize. In 2018, she played along­side Thomas Schmauser and Ger­man film icon Han­nelore Elsner in the biopic DER GROSSE RUDOLPH by Alexan­der Adolph, again fol­lowed by a show­er of awards. She was part of the ensem­ble in the Net­flix hit-series DARK (2017÷2019) by Jan­t­je Friese and Baran Bo Odar and the thriller series THE DEFEATED (2020), as well as in the Net­flix crime series HOW TO SELL DRUGS ONLINE (FAST) (2020). And most notably, in 2021 she was part of the ensem­ble of the series remake by Ama­zon Prime of the 80s hit movie WE CHILDREN FROM BAHNHOF ZOO, direct­ed by Philipp Kadel­bach. In 2021 she was part of Oliv­er Kracht’s grad­u­a­tion film GERMANY YEAR ZERO (2021) and of the com­e­dy SWEET DISASTER (2021). She had the lead part in FRANKY FIVE STAR (2022), direct­ed by Bir­git Moeller, play­ing a com­plex char­ac­ter with mul­ti­ple per­son­al­i­ties – which just was my favourite at this year’s Max-Ophüls-Fes­ti­val. Lena Urzen­dowsky has sev­er­al upcom­ing projects in 2023, includ­ing JENSEITS DER BLAUEN GRENZE, a nov­el adap­ta­tion direct­ed by Sarah Neu­mann, and a role in Ama­zon Prime’s series LUDEN. She recent­ly starred in Michael Klier’s DAS SCHÖNSTE IST DER FLUSS and appeared in Andreas Dresen’s lat­est film FROM HILDE, WITH LOVE. When not act­ing, she stud­ies phi­los­o­phy at Hum­boldt Uni­ver­si­ty in Berlin and recent­ly stud­ied at the Stel­la Adler Stu­dio of Act­ing in New York.

[With the use of the press kit of Ger­man Films]