Biography:

Jutta Wachowiak was born in Berlin on December 13, 1940. From 1961 to 1963, she studied performing arts at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen “Konrad Wolf”  in Potsdam-Babelsberg (now Film University Potsdam). Wachowiak made her theater debut at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1963, then she performed at the State Theater in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz), where she proved herself to be an exceptionally versatile theater actress. In 1970, the director Wolfgang Heinz brought her to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where she stayed until 2005. She joined the Schauspiel Theater in Essen in 2006, and performed at the Schauspielhaus Bochum from 2010 to 2014.

Parallel to her studies and throughout her theater career, Wachowiak has worked in film and television. Her first screen appearance was in Ralf Kirsten’s popular romantic comedy, Auf der Sonnenseite, in which she played a fellow acting student with the protagonist Martin Hoff (Manfred Krug). It was in 1968 when she played her first leading role, this time as Babka in the television adaptation of Arnold Zweig’s novel Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa. Nevertheless, her breakthrough came with two television productions by theater director Thomas Langhoff: Die Forelle, premiering in 1976; and Befragung – Anna O, in 1977. The actress and the director began an intense collaboration that continued through 1982, and Langhoff cast Wachowiak in all five of his TV productions from 1978 to 1982. In the 1980s, Wachowiak also began her work with director Roland Gräf, and she landed several of her major film roles with him, including in the award-winning film Fallada – Letztes Kapitel.

Wachowiak starred in many major productions. Her work ranged from literary adaptations, like Stine, to artist biographies, such as Käthe Kollwitz – Bilder eines Lebens, to controversial contemporary subjects about everyday life in the GDR in Einzug ins Paradies. She earned international acclaim for her performance as a resistance fighter, who is sentenced to ten years in prison during the Nazi era, in Günter Reisch’s and Günther Rücker’s Die Verlobte. This film won numerous international awards, including Best Female Actor for Wachowiak, as well as the Crystal Globe at the 1980 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

After unification, Wachowiak took on ambitious film roles, including parts in Margarethe von Trotta’s Jahrestage, based on a novel by Uwe Johnson, and also in Trotta’s internationally awarded film Rosenstrasse. She also played East German author Brigitte Reimann’s mother in Hunger auf Leben by Markus Imboden.

Festivals & Awards: