Biography:

Christine Schorn was born in Prague on February 1, 1944. Growing up with parents who were actors in Kiel and East Berlin, she decided to become an actress as well. From 1961 to 1964, she studied at the Staatliche Schauspielschule in Berlin. Thereafter she became one of the leading actors in the Deutsches Theater ensemble, where she worked until 2010. Some of her unforgettable stage roles were Yelena in Uncle Vanya and Iokaste in Oedipus Rex. Since 2010 she has given guest performances in Zurich, Potsdam and Berlin, including in the Jewish family-saga Über Leben, which is based on plays by Judith Herzberg and premiered in 2011.

As of the mid-1960s, Schorn also began appearing in film and television productions. At the East German DEFA Studio for Feature Films, she gave remarkable performances in supporting roles in Der Dritte and Wahlverwandtschaften. After director Lothar Warneke cast her in a supporting role as a secretary in Unser kurzes Leben, he decided to cast her as the lead in Die Beunruhigung, Inge Herold. Her portrayal of this woman in her mid-30s, who finds out that she might have breast cancer, earned Schorn much international praise and admiration. In 1983, for example, the American Film Institute praised her “ability to express the deepest fears with subtle movements of her eyes, body and hesitations of speech.” Schorn’s collaboration with Warneke continued in the following years, as a resolute chef who is searching for love in Eine sonderbare Liebe and in Blonder Tango, a moving story about a Chilean exile in the East German theater milieu.

In the 1990s, after German unification, Schorn performed with Manfred Krug in a satirical television series about the Wende based on a Jurek Becker script, Wir sind auch nur ein Volk. Her performances in supporting roles as the caring grandmother in Das Leben ist nichts für Feiglinge and as the mother of three intractable daughters in Frei nach Plan, were honored with German Film Awards in Gold. She was also a cast member in Andreas Dresen’s Halt auf freier Strecke, in which she played the mother of a young man who suffers from cancer and knows he will die; this film won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2011. In 2016, Schorn received the Schwerin Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Over the course of her career, Christine Schorn has worked with internationally awarded directors, including Rainer Simon (Die Frau und der Fremde), Frank Beyer (Der Verdacht), Wolfgang Becker (Good Bye, Lenin!), Andreas Dresen (Halbe Treppe), Jutta Brückner (Die Hitlerkantate) and Christoph Schaub (Giulias Verschwinden). With over 150 films to her name, she is one of Germany’s most prominent and versatile actresses.

Festivals & Awards: