Andreas Dresen

Andreas Dresen is one of the most successful contemporary German filmmakers whose career began as the Berlin Wall was crumbling. His recent Grill Point (2001) was an audience favorite at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, with its breakthrough use of caste improvisation to replace a script. Night Shapes (1998) too earned critical acclaim as a slice-of-life look at the Berlin of today. Dresen’s first feature Silent Country (1992) was set in the East German provinces, like Changing Skins, where historic events seem wistfully far away. An eager youth theater director tries to stage Waiting for Godot in a run-down, small-town theater with a cast of cynics and drunks. Dresen was born in Gera, East Germany, in 1963. He initially worked as a sound engineer for the Schwerin Theater; he studied directing at the “Konrad Wolf” Academy of Film and Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg and began working as a screenwriter and director in 1992. A member of the Academy of Arts Berlin-Brandenburg since 1998, he received the Andrzej Wajda / Philip Morris Freedom Prize in 2002. Presently lives in Potsdam. 

“Andreas Dresen’s films open a window into the hearts and minds of everyday people facing-yet not always surmounting-life’s challenges. Like Andrzej Wajda, Dresen consistently portrays the human condition with honest insight and compassion.”
-American Cinema Foundation; Andrzej Wajda / Philip Morris Freedom Prize 

Filmography

2005
Willenbrock (Willenbrock)

2003
Vote for Henryk! (Herr Wichmann von der CDU; documentary)

2001
Grill Point (Halbe Treppe)

2000
The Policewoman (Die Polizistin, TV)

1998
Night Shapes (Nachtgestalten)

1997
Changing Skins (Raus aus der Haut, TV)

1996
Police Call 110 – The Exchange (Polizeiruf 110-Der Tausch; TV)

1995
My Unknown Husband (Mein unbekannter Ehemann; TV)
The Other Life of Mr. Kreins (Das andere Leben des Herrn Kreins; TV)
Hometown Stories: Old Friends (Heimatgeschichten: Alte Freunde; TV)
Hometown Stories; Jump Into Happiness (Heimatgeschichten: Sprung ins Glück; TV)
Girlfriend Against One’s Will (Freundin wider Willen; TV)

1994
Cuckoo’s Children (Kuckuckskinder; documentary; TV)

1993
Krause's Pub (Krauses Kneipe; documentary; TV)

1992
Silent Country (Stilles Land)
Choosing a Bride (Die Brautwahl; film for the performance at the Deutschen Staatsoper Berlin)

1991
Everything Remains Different (Es bleibt alles ganz anders; documentary)
Fools Won’t Die Out (Die Narren sterben nicht aus; documentary)
Lulu (film for the performance at the Pariser Oper)

1990
Train In the Distance (Zug in die Ferne; short)
Short Cut To Istanbul (So schnell geht es nach Istanbul; short film)

1989
Beyond Klein-Wanzleben (Jenseits von Klein-Wanzleben; documentary)

1986
Another’s Step (Schritte des anderen; short film)

1985
The Little Clown (Der kleine Clown, short film)