Christoph Prochnow

Christoph Prochnow (born March 18, 1942 in Berlin ) is a German author and dramaturge.

Career

Growing up in East Berlin, Prochnow applied to the GDR film school in Potsdam-Babelsberg after graduating from high school in 1960 . Before he passed the entrance exam, he completed an apprenticeship as an electrical mechanic in the Elektro-Apparate-Werken in Berlin-Treptow and then began his four-year dramaturgy studies at the film school in 1962. This was followed by a one-year assistant director in the DEFA studio for feature films.

From 1967 to 1970 Prochnow worked as a film editor in Progress Film-Verleih , after which he returned to the DEFA feature film studio. There, as a research assistant in the editing department, he dealt with DEFA film productions, as well as more general issues of film studies. Some of this was published in the series “From Theory and Practice of Film” by the company academy. In addition, between 1965 and 1983 further publications on film studies and film criticism appeared in specialist journals, periodicals and edited volumes of the GDR.

In 1986 Prochnow moved to the Babelsberg group as a dramaturge within the feature film studio , where he developed and supervised various film material, three of which could be realized before the end of the DEFA ( Treffen in Travers 1989, A Usable Man 1989, The Architects 1990) fourth as a television film ( TRUTZ 1991).

From 1995 to 1999 Prochnow worked as a dramaturge and editor for Saxonia media , where he was primarily responsible for the crime scene and police call series.

In addition to his work for DEFA, Prochnow had already started writing radio plays in 1971, mainly based on epic models. After 2000 he also worked as a radio play author for Deutschlandradio Kultur .

Publications: (selection)

Radio plays:

• 1971 The geese from Bützow (after Wilhelm Raabe)
• 1972 Strange example of female revenge (after Denis Diderot)
• 1974 His last role
• 1978 The Barons von Gemperlein (after Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
• 1979 Second Lieutenant Saber (after Juri Tynjanow)
• 1979 partners (after Elfriede Brüning)
• 1980 My Uncle Benjamin (after Claude Tillier)
• 1984 The travel encounter (based on Anna Seghers)
• 2006 The gunman (after Stefan Zweig)
• 2007 Hoffmann's revenge
• 2008 murder in the head
• 2008 death fantasy
• 2009 The Master's Shadow (based on Marc Buhl)
• 2010 The last step
• 2011 The tooth of Voltaire
• 2013 Zola's chimney
• 2015 The battle painter (based on Arturo Perez-Reverte) for NDR
• 2015 Van Gogh's silence
• 2017 The end of Laura and Paul

Fiction

• Russian castling. Novella, ISBN 978-3-7103-2853-4 .

Reviews (selection)

• on murder in the head: End of the loyalty of Stefan Fischer in Süddeutsche Zeitung of August 18, 2008.
• on Hoffmann's revenge: The skull of the poet by Ernst Corinth in Hannoversche Allgemeine from June 16, 2007.
• on The Battle Painter: A listening pleasure from Andreas Matzdorf in media correspondence from June 26, 2015.
• on Van Gogh's silence: Perky ears from Rafik Will in media correspondence on October 30, 2015.