Biography:

Volker Koepp was born in Stettin (now Szcecin, Poland) in 1944. He studied at the Technical University in Dresden from 1963 to 1965. In 1966, he entered the German Academy for Film in Potsdam-Babelsberg, where he obtained his diploma as a writer and film director in 1969. Koepp was a director at the DEFA Studio for Documentary Films from 1970 to 1991, and has been a freelance director, writer, and producer since then.

At the beginning of his career, Koepp mainly worked on shorts for the program Treffpunkt Kino and on portrait films featuring figures such as film director Slatan Dudow and Erich Weinert, a German political poet and agitator. In 1972, he filmed Grüße aus Sarmatien für den Dichter Johannes Bobrowski, painting a filmic picture of the writer’s landscapes. Over forty years later, Koepp revisited the area again and directed In Sarmatien. He interviewed young people and discussed current developments in Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova.

Koepp’s special affinity for this area and its people is reflected in many of his films, including Kalte Heimat and Frau Zwilling und Herr Zuckermann. The latter film, a sensible and poetic portrait of the last two German-speaking Jews living in Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), drew international attention and was awarded several prizes. Both films were photographed by the famed German cameraman Thomas Plenert, with whom Koepp has collaborated on many other films.

Volker Koepp likes to return to familiar places and, in his March Brandenburg Trilogy (1989-91), he revisited a brick factory in the little town Zehdenick and documented the life of workers over three years.

In 1974, Koepp and cameraman Christian Lehmann began an ambitious long-term project in Wittstock, focusing on the women workers at a textile factory. By 1997, they had made a total of seven films about Wittstock, an insightful observation of over twenty years of the daily lives of women in East Germany and the radical changes they had to face after the fall of the Wall.

Volker Koepp has directed over fifty documentaries and is one of Germany’s most internationally-celebrated documentary filmmakers. For many years, Koepp’s films have been part of prestigious international documentary film festivals, including Cinéma du Réel (Paris, France), Viennale (Vienna, Austria), and Visions du Réel (Nyon, Switzerland). 

Festivals & Awards: