Dirk Schäfer (director)
Dirk Michael Schäfer (born March 5, 1961 in Gelnhausen ) is a German director of documentaries and feature films.
Life
Born and raised in Hessen, Schäfer first moved to Munich in 1981, where he learned the profession of film editor from Patricia Rommel . In 1984 he moved to West Berlin, where in 1988 his debut film The White Dwarfs was made for the ZDF editorial team, “ Das kleine Fernsehspiel ”. It was followed by two more feature films directed by Schäfer for ZDF: Wilma lives far away and Twenty-eight Thousand Wishes , in which, in addition to his long-time companion and co-author Marie Schmitz u. a. Inge Keller and Georgette Dee can be seen.
On behalf of the SFB, Schäfer made his first documentary film with Alis Welt in 1995 , which at the same time brought him into contact with his future focus: the people and culture of Anatolia .
At the end of his further education at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts , Schäfer made the short film Lâl in Istanbul in 2004 , the comeback of actress Grischa Huber , who u. a. at the international film festivals in New York and Clermont-Ferrand .
Since 2006 Schäfer has mainly made documentaries in Turkey, including a. for Arte the documentary Von Mülleseln und Seifenfrauen . Until 2010, Schäfer taught documentary film and video editing at the Bilgi University in Istanbul .
After a long absence from German festivals, the film Eine Art Liebe , the portrait of the young Kurd Nevzat, premiered at DOK Leipzig in 2012 and was honored by the jury as an outstanding German documentary film. For this in-house production, Schäfer was the first to direct, camera and edit in one person.
Schäfer shot the documentary The Hot Month , which was broadcast on June 20, 2015, for a program focus of the Bavarian Radio on Ramadan . Eight Muslims who live in Bavaria give an insight into Islamic fasting. The Ramadan logo with a crescent moon displayed by the broadcaster during the broadcast triggers outrage from many conservative viewers and a shitstorm that forces the Bavarian Broadcasting Company to comment.
In autumn 2016, against the background of escalating diplomatic tensions between Germany and Turkey, Schäfer made the documentary legs like a stork with ex-Daimler boss Edzard Reuter about his childhood and youth in Turkey. His father Ernst Reuter fled the Nazis to Ankara in 1935 because of his socialist ideology, together with his wife Hanna and the then seven-year-old Edzard, whose stature earned him a mockery of his “stork legs” among Turkish children. The film premiered in July 2017 at the Berlin Academy of the Arts and is running - as a dialogue-promoting work - in the context of German-Turkish cultural events.
Awards
- 1989: Film Festival Max Ophüls Prize : Category: “Film Prize from the Minister President of the Saarland” for his film The White Dwarfs
- 2012: DOK Leipzig : Competition German Documentary Film: Special mention by the jury for Eine Art Liebe as an outstanding German documentary film
- 2013: Dokufest Prizren: Special mention by the jury for Eine Art Liebe
Filmography (selection)
- 1989: The white dwarfs
- 1991: Wilma lives far away
- 1993: Twenty-eight thousand wishes
- 1996: Ali's world
- 2005: Lâl
- 2010: From garbage collectors and soap women
- 2012: a kind of love
- 2015: The hot month
- 2017: Leylek Bacaklı - legs like a stork
Web links
- Dirk Schäfer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Dirk Schäfer at filmportal.de
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shepherd, Dirk |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Schäfer, Dirk Michael (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German director of documentaries and feature films |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 5, 1961 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gelnhausen |