Biography:

Dietmar Hochmuth was born in Berlin in 1954. He worked as an assistant director at the DEFA Studio for Feature Films in Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1972-73, before moving to Moscow to study at the renowned Moscow Film Academy, VGIK. His master’s thesis project was a 35mm feature film entitled Heute abend und morgen früh (This Evening, Tomorrow Morning). After returning to the GDR, Hochmuth returned to DEFA, where he directed several feature films, expanding to documentary filmmaking after the fall of the Wall. In addition to filmmaking, he also works as a teacher, writer, translator, and publisher.

Hochmuth has written several screenplays and published hundreds of photographs, articles, reviews, and interviews related to film in German newspapers and magazines. He has also published many articles on film and media studies in edited volumes. His 1993 book, DEFA NOVA - Nach wie vor?, looks at the last generation of filmmakers at DEFA. He has co-edited several books on the cinema of Eisenstein, Zanussi and others with the film historian Oksana Bulgakowa. In 1996, he founded an independent publishing company for books on film and new media, with offices in Berlin and San Francisco.  [See: www.PotemkinPress.com]

Hochmuth was a visiting professor at the Berlin Film Academy (dffb) in 1996. In 1998, he moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he worked on several film projects and taught film history and digital filmmaking at Stanford University. Since returning to Germany in 2004, he has taught at the Internationale Filmschule in Cologne, the Technische Kunsthochschule für Design in Berlin, and the Institut für Mediengestaltung der Fachhochschule Mainz. He was also involved in the Filmischen Modellversuch 2010 and 2011 (The Filmic Model Experiment 2010 and 2011) at the University of Mainz. 

Bibliography & More:

Hochmuth, Dietmar. DEFA NOVA - Nach wie vor? Berlin: Arsenal, Deutsche Kinemathek. 1993.

Co-edited with Ulrich Gregor. Die Filme der Prager Frühlings 1963-1969. (transl. The Films of the Prague Spring 1963-1969). Kinemathek 79. Berlin: Freunde der Deutschen Kinemathek e.V. 1992.

Co-edited with Oksana Bulgakova. Krzysztof Zanussi: Das Jahr der ruhigen Sonne–Filmerzählungen (transl. Krzysztof Zanussi: The Year of the Silent Sun–Film Stories). Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben. 1989.

Co-edited with Oksana Bulgakova. Sergej Eisenstein. Das dynamische Quadrat. Schriften zum Film (transl. Sergei Eisenstein:The Dynamic Square–Writings on Film). Leipzig: Reclam Verlag.1988.