Biography:

Heinz Kersten was one of the few West German critics to focus on East German theater and cinema, making his a rare cultural voice from across the Wall. In So viele Träume, a compilation of his reviews, Heinz Kersten writes: “An evening at the Kosmos movie theater (or at the International, or Colosseum) in East Berlin, the next morning at the RIAS radio station in West Berlin, and in between an almost sleepless night at my desk.… This ritual was repeated almost half of my life as a film critic.”

Born in Dresden, Kersten studied German literature, journalism and theater theory in Berlin. He then became a freelance film and theater critic—first on the radio (RIAS, Deutschlandfunk) and later in print (Tagesspiegel, Frankfurter Rundschau). Kersten still reports from national and international film festivals, such as those in Berlin, Karlovy Vary, Locarno and San Sebastian, and continues to write reviews of new films for Freitag, Neues Deutschland and Deutschlandradio. He is currently working on his autobiography and lives in Berlin and Filicudi, Italy.

Bibliography & More:

Kersten, Heinz. Mehr als Theater - Kritikerblicke auf Ostberliner Bühnen 1973-1990. Berlin: VISTAS, 2006.

Kersten, Heinz. So viele Träume. Berlin: VISTAS, 1996.