Biography:

Thomas Plenert was born in Nauen, East Germany, on February 1, 1951. From 1972 to 1976, he studied cinematography at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen (HFF, now: Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf) in Potsdam-Babelsberg and at the Film Academy in Łódź, Poland.

At the HFF he met Jörg Foth, who was studying directing, and they started a collaboration that lasted throughout their careers. Among other student films, Plenert filmed Foth’s short documentary Blumenland. When director Jürgen Böttcher saw this film, he invited Plenert to work with him on his upcoming documentary, Im Lohmgrund. Plenert and Böttcher have worked together on ten films since 1976, including internationally recognized masterpieces such as In Georgien, Rangierer and Die Mauer.

In East Germany, Plenert shot both documentary and feature films and worked in both television and cinema. His feature film debut—shown at the 1982 Venice International Film Festival—was Die Beunruhigung, by director Lothar Warneke. Critics praised Plenert’s poetic and intense black-and-white images, as well as the authenticity of his filming of original locations. The Warneke-Plenert team also worked on the love story Eine sonderbare Liebe and on the literary adaption of Omar Saavedra Santis’ novel Blonder Tango, a story about a Chilean who feels isolated in East German exile.

Plenert became the regular cameraman for several other important German directors as well, including Lutz Dammbeck (Das Netz, Zeit der Götter) and Helke Misselwitz (Winter Adé, Herzprung and Engelchen). Since 1987, Plenert has photographed almost all of Volker Koepp’s documentaries, including the award-winning films Holunderblüte (Grand Prix at the 2008 Cinéma du Rèel) and Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann (nominated for the 1999 European Film Award); in 1996, Plenert received the German Film Award in Gold for Best Cinematographer for Koepp’s Kalte Heimat.

More recently, Plenert was the director of photography for many feature film directors, including Peter Kahane and Bernd Böhlich. He also filmed the international co-production Nuit de chien, Werner Schroeter’s last film, a dark and surreal tale of a man determined to rescue a lost lover from violence.

Thomas Plenert, one of the most talented and accomplished living cinematographers in Germany, died on July 15, 2023.

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