Eva and Volker A. Zahn

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Screenwriter duo Eva and Volker A. Zahn

Eva Zahn (born 1960 in Karlsruhe ) and her husband Volker A. Zahn (born October 13, 1961 in Neheim-Hüsten , North Rhine-Westphalia ) are German scriptwriters and journalists .

Life

Eva Zahn

After graduating from high school and studying history and social psychology in Cologne, Eva Zahn has been an author and editor for a city magazine since 1985. From 1989 she wrote as a freelance journalist for the women's magazines Petra, Marie Claire, Elle, Harpers Bazar and for the German edition of Playboy , until she was hired by the TV station RTL in 1991 as editor and head of the service for various magazine programs. Eva Zahn has been a full-time screenwriter since 1993.

Volker A. Zahn

After graduating from high school, Volker A. Zahn studied history, politics and German in Cologne. Since 1982 he has worked as a freelance author for various city magazines, specifically and as a co-author on various book projects (including Die Republikaner - Phantombild der Neue Rechts von Claus Leggewie ). From 1988 to 1989 he was editor-in-chief of a Cologne city magazine, then editor and author at Wiener . After a satirical article in the “Wiener”, the Munich District Court sentenced him in 1991 for denigrating the Free State of Bavaria to 40 daily rates of 60 marks each. In a political settlement, Zahn compared the conditions in the CSU-ruled Free State with the GDR and described Bavaria as the “madhouse of the republic”. The defense had pleaded for acquittal, citing the columnist form of satire such as Kurt Tucholsky or Helmut Qualtinger. From 1992 to 2002 Volker A. Zahn worked as an author and text editor for the German Playboy. Since 1992 he has been writing screenplays with his wife Eva Zahn.

Working together as scriptwriters

Together Eva and Volker A. Zahn wrote more than 120 film scripts, including for the ZDF series Bella Block , Das Duo and Ein starkes Team as well as for the ARD crime series Tatort . In the biopic Kolle - A Life for Love and Sex , they portrayed the sex educator Oswalt Kolle in 2002 , and in 2005 the teen comedy Suddenly famous was created for ProSieben . In addition, the couple has been one of the regular authors of the ZDF crime series SOKO Leipzig for many years .

One of the most important works of the author couple is the script for the TV drama You can never be sure . The film about a 17-year-old who is suspected of planning a rampage at his school because of an aggressive rap text has won numerous national and international awards, including a. also with a Grimme Prize for the authors. The "Berliner Zeitung" praised the "clever script" in which the authors, according to the "Tagesspiegel", "allow themselves some cross-references to Goethe and Plenzdorf".

The book for the prison film “Schurkenstück” tells the story of a theater director who tries to bring a work by Friedrich Dürrenmatt onto the stage with five young prisoners . The film was named by the industry magazine "Funkkorrespondenz" as one of "the highlights of the television year 2010", but the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" complained that the script exchanged a "controversial discussion" about migration problems and violence among young people "for political correctness" .

The adaption of the screenplay of the novel “Mobbing” by Annette Pehnt by Eva and Volker A. Zahn described the industry magazine “epd medien” as “congenial”, and for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” the film proves “that it only comes with a script extraordinary qualities and smart decisions are required to make an exceptionally good film that is far from cliché. "

The script for the ARD drama Life Afterwards tells the love story of Toni and Sascha, whose lives were completely out of joint due to the Duisburg Love Parade catastrophe . The script was created on the basis of hundreds of conversations with survivors and those affected by the disaster in which 21 people were killed and hundreds injured on July 24, 2010. On the occasion of this ARD film, “Spiegel online” writes about the working methods of the author couple: “Although the socio-political subject may be at the beginning of your work, this subject is always embedded in a social cosmos whose characters breathe life. Beautiful, hideous life. ”For“ The Life Afterwards ”Eva and Volker A. Zahn were awarded the Robert Geisendörfer Prize , the media prize of the Protestant Church.

From September 2017, ZDF broadcast the six-part series Zarah - Wild Years, designed and written by Eva and Volker A. Zahn . However, the format did not meet the station's rating expectations and was withdrawn from the main evening program after two episodes and broadcast on ZDFneo. The series takes place in a fictional magazine editorial at the beginning of the 1970s and tells of a feminist's struggle against macho attitudes and male power structures. The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” praised the “well thought-out dramaturgy” of the series, and for the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” “the criticism of the cynical media apparatus here is often packaged in harmless social chatter, similar to Helmut Dietl's 'Kir Royal', and incidentally not less sharply worded. ”Eva and Volker A. Zahn were awarded the Juliane Bartel Prize 2018 for the books on the series .

Along with Annette Hess , Kristin Derfler and Orkun Ertener, Eva and Volker A. Zahn are among the founding members of the scriptwriting initiative Kontrakt 18 , a voluntary commitment signed by numerous scriptwriters , which is intended to give authors more creative control in the process of film production.

Filmography

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0951997/
  2. ↑ http://www.zahns.com/pressestimmen
  3. ↑ Thomas Gehringer: Television: The suffering of the young O. Media. In: tagesspiegel.de . October 22, 2008, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  4. ↑ http://www.zahns.com/pressestimmen
  5. ↑ Uwe Ebbinghaus: The young director's visit. In: FAZ.net . August 18, 2010, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Heike Hupertz: Dr. Schulz can never be seen. In: FAZ.net . May 15, 2013, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Elmar Krekeler: “Life afterwards” on ARD: I'm still alive, it's my fault. In: welt.de . September 27, 2017, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Christian Buß: "Life afterwards" about the 2010 Love Parade disaster: Duisburg Calling! In: Spiegel Online . September 26, 2017, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  9. ↑ https://www.ekd.de/35-robert-geisendoerfer-preis-2018-37597.htm
  10. ↑ Oliver Junge: The Deputy. New ZDF series "Zarah". In: FAZ . September 7, 2017, accessed November 16, 2018.
  11. ↑ Claudia Schwartz: In front the bare bosom and in the back "Feminism for stupid". In: nzz.ch. March 29, 2017, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  12. ↑ a b "Top-class" - film and radio contributions awarded the Juliane Bartel Media Prize. Equality Minister Carola Reimann: "The award-winning contributions shake you up and encourage you at the same time". In: ms.niedersachsen.de. Lower Saxony Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Equality , November 21, 2018, accessed on November 22, 2018.
  13. ↑ http://beta.blickpunktfilm.de/details/267982
  14. ↑ 50th Grimme Prize 2014 - nominations. Grimme Institute, accessed on November 7, 2018 .
  15. ↑ 54th Grimme Prize 2018 - nominations. Grimme Institute, accessed on November 7, 2018 .