Chris Kraus (director)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chris Kraus (l.) With Adèle Haenel and Lars Eidinger (Austrian premiere of The Flowers of Yesterday , 2017)

Christopher "Chris" Johannes Kraus (* 1963 in Göttingen ) is a German author and film director .

Life

Chris Kraus initially worked as a journalist and illustrator before studying directing at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin from 1991 to 1998 . Since 1994 he has worked as a dramaturgical advisor and author for Volker Schlöndorff , Rosa von Praunheim , Detlev Buck and other directors. For television he took on several commissioned works, such as B. the script for individual episodes of the series Motzki and for the crime comedy Marga Engel strikes back .

In 2002 his first novel was published under the title Scherbentanz , which he himself filmed with Margit Carstensen and Jürgen Vogel , among others . The book and the film tell of the relationship between a young man suffering from leukemia and his alcoholic mother. The debut work has been awarded several prizes, such as the Bavarian Film Prize 2002 in the categories of young directors and best actress (for Margit Carstensen), the golden camera (for Jürgen Vogel), and the European Film Award 2003 for best director at the 6th Mallorca International Film Festival and the New Faces Award for Best Director.

In 2006 Kraus completed his second feature film Vier Minuten (with Monica Bleibtreu , Hannah Herzsprung and Nadja Uhl ). At the center of the plot is a musically gifted young woman who sits in prison as an auto-aggressive murderer.

Vier Minuten became one of the most successful German films of the year at the box office and won more than 60 international film awards worldwide, including a. the Grand Prix of the International Film Festival Shanghai , the Bavarian Film Prize 2007 in four categories and the German Film Prize 2007, the "golden Lola" for the best film.

In 2010 he released his third feature film Poll (with Paula Beer , Edgar Selge and Jeanette Hain ), the plot of which was inspired by the biography of his great-aunt Oda Schaefer . The cinema release in Germany was on February 3, 2011. Poll won, among other things, the special jury award at the Festa del Cinema di Roma and the main award Goldener Biber at the Biberach Film Festival and was awarded in three categories at the Bavarian Film Prize 2010 and in four categories at the German Film Prize.

Together with the directors Tom Tykwer , Robert Thalheim , Axel Ranisch and the director Julia von Heinz , Chris Kraus shot the documentary Rosakinder (2012) about the relationship with their mutual "film father" and mentor Rosa von Praunheim .

In 2016, his tragic comedy The Flowers of Yesterday (with Lars Eidinger , Adèle Haenel and Jan Josef Liefers ) attracted a lot of attention from the audience and critics . After four minutes, Kraus’s most successful cinema film to date tells the love story of two Holocaust researchers, using black humor and a romantic narrative attitude for z. Partly caused strong discussions in the press. The film was nominated for the German Film Prize in eight categories, won a. a. the Grand Prix of the International Film Festival Tokyo , the Baden-Württemberg Film Prize for the best film, several Jewish film festivals (including Moscow and Berlin), the Gilde Film Prize for the best film of the year and the Austrian Film Prize for the best actor (Lars Eidinger ).

Chris Kraus made his debut as an opera director with Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio in 2008 at the Teatro Valli di Reggio nell'Emilia together with the conductor Claudio Abbado . This production, in which the Viennese Arnold Schoenberg Choir and the Coro di Communidad di Madrid also participated, could also be seen at the Teatro Real (Madrid), the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden , the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara and the Teatro Comunale "Pavarotti" in Modena . In 2008 the production won the most prestigious opera award in Italy, the “ Premio Abbiati ”, which is under the patronage of the President , in the category of best production of the year.

In addition to his directorial work and work as a screenwriter, Chris Kraus has also emerged as a novelist.

The second novel, Das kalte Blut , published in 2017, is inspired by the SS past of the grandfather of Baltic origin and his two brothers. In addition, the beginnings of the Federal Intelligence Service with the organization Gehlen are discussed. Research for the book began in 2002. A film adaptation by Bavarian Radio as a mini-series is in preparation.

Filmography

Directorial work

Further scripts (also collaboration)

Literary works

literature

  • Jochen Brunow (Ed.): From the salt of life and from the vessel of evil. A workshop talk with Chris Kraus. (= Scenario 3. Film and Screenplay Almanac ). Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86505-188-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Four minutes - a film by Chris Kraus. Retrieved March 7, 2018 .
  2. ↑ cf. German film award for “Vincent will Meer” ( memento from April 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at sueddeutsche.de, April 8, 2011 (accessed April 8, 2011).
  3. ↑ Deutschlandfunk: nuances from July 2, 2017
  4. ↑ Fabian Wolff: Beautiful Jews, impotent Germans. Review. In: The Literary World . 22nd March 2017.
  5. ↑ Cornelius Wüllenkemper: Chris Kraus: "The cold blood". Absolute evil as the fuel of history. deutschlandfunk.de , accessed May 11, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Kraus, Chris
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kraus, Christopher Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author and film director
DATE OF BIRTH 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen