Jörg A. Eggers

Jörg A. Eggers (born June 15, 1936 in Heidelberg ) is an Austrian film director , screenwriter and film producer .

Live and act

Eggers studied acting and directing at the Wiesbaden Conservatory , as well as theater studies, psychology and philosophy at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in 1964. From 1958 he was engaged as an actor and assistant director on various stages. a. at the cabaret Die Zeitberichter in Frankfurt am Main , then at the Parkring Theater and Center Theater , at the Theater der Jugend in Vienna, Wiener Komödie, Theater am Naschmarkt and Burgtheater , at the Salzburg Festival , as well as at the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation . In 1961 he switched from radio to television as a director, where he staged various television games in addition to music and entertainment programs until 1971. For the next three years he headed the television film, documentary and theater department. In 1969 he directed at the Theater in der Josefstadt .

With Der Fall Regine Krause , a semi-documentary reconstruction of a criminal case from 1920, Eggers made his first feature-length television film in 1970. His first feature film was The Last Werkelmann in 1971 , a sociogram of Vienna from 1914, based on the fate of an organ grinder , which was awarded the 1972 Austrian National Education TV Prize.

Jörg A. Eggers chose the pseudonym Arni Liebenberg for his movie Steig aus dein Luftballon (1985; working title: “Up and down”) . With this homage, which is only transparent for the well-versed Vienna connoisseur (addressed to the legendary Viennese mayor who sacrificed himself for his fellow citizens in the plague year 1679 and during the Turkish siege of 1683 ), the man from Germany, who has been in Vienna was home to artists his self-image as a Viennese author and director.

“... Eggers writes today, like no other in this country, usable, laconic dialogues that certainly fail any theatrical gesture, knows how to cast a film correctly. He obviously has the ability to successfully drive his actors, who in Austria necessarily have far more stage than film experience, into the theater and to teach them a feeling for the other medium ... All in all, I want to live is not just the best feature film , which has been produced in this country for a long time, but also the 'most commercial' ... Provided it gets to the cinema, this film will not only survive there, but also provoke a new Austrian film life. ” This is how the critic Franz Manola wrote about Eggers '“The confrontation of a bourgeois relationship with the handicapped problem, described in a very nuanced way”.

The social commitment that defines the topics of his TV documentaries was already evident during his student days when he donated the oil paintings he created in his free time to the aid organization Künstlerhilfe Künstler, founded by the castle actress Hilde Wagener , for charitable purposes. Herbert Hauk, board member of this organization and head of the youth and family department at ORF, became aware of Eggers. Herbert Hauk Eggers was involved in the introduction of Austrian school television, who was then responsible for the design of didactically excellent programs in collaboration with Helmut Zilk . Eggers developed over 60 TV formats in the pioneering years of ORF. Educational television, orientation aids and contributions to the humanization of society are at the center of Eggers' television activities. Eggers succeeded in deepening socially relevant topics in fifty-minute documentaries and embedding them in ninety-minute fictional entertainment films with the documentary We must do everything possible to the best of our knowledge and belief (A 1975; Volksbildungspreis 1976), and with his uncovering the causes of juvenile delinquency in It doesn't take psychoanalysis to determine that life is one graveyard of failed plans (A 1976). With We must do everything that is possible to the best of our knowledge and belief , Eggers broke the taboo of not bringing disabled people onto the screen. The Austrian television audience reacted extremely negatively.

With crime documentaries such as Convicted 1910 - Max Winter Fights for First Lieutenant Hofrichter (A / D 1974), Eggers showed his talent for staging the zeitgeist in a historically accurate way. His debut as a film director, The Last Werkelmann from 1971, was all about Vienna. Eggers drew a sociogram of Vienna from 1914 on the fate of a typical Viennese organ grinder; The work was awarded the 1972 People's Education Prize after its TV broadcast for its artistic dialect language, which was based on Ödön von Horváth, and for the coherent staging. The direction concept, the attempt to implement the goals of the Kassel documenta in film, was a response to the dying entertainment film of the 1950s and 1960s. Dissolution of the dream factory, radical approach to reality, away from the embellished images, no built decorations, no illuminated faces, no made-up masks, no synchronization, no musical background. Only original sound, only original music, only original locations. The last Werkelmann was the prelude to a series of socially critical films on Austrian television. The concept of “documenta” in Austrian film hardly differed from the concept of “ dogma ” that Lars von Trier postulated 24 years later in 1995 in Denmark.

In 1975 Eggers switched from the ORF association to a freelance career as a producer and founded the Cine Mercury Film-Fernsehproduktion Ges.mbH with which he produced his international success I will live (5th place in the preselection for nominations for the Oscar abroad in 1977). Kathina Kaiser and Heinz Bennent played the main roles . In 1979 he founded Saturn Film GmbH in Munich. In December 2012 it moved to Berlin, where Eggers handed over the management and company shares to Philipp Meuser.

In addition to being a producer, Eggers has been teaching dramaturgy, directing and film production at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences since 2002 (course media technology ).

Filmography

Documentaries

• 1969: Pompeii (documentary; production / book / director / 29.45 min.)
• 1970: I love the world (documentary film, director / 70 min.)
• 1971: Folk music & customs in Vorarlberg (TV doc. Book / director / 45 min.)
• 1975: God save us from Otto Wagner; (TV documentary book / director / 60 min.) (Client Award 1975)
• 1975: We have to do everything that is possible to the best of our knowledge and belief (TV-Dok./Prod./Buch/Regie / 60 min.) (TV Prize of the Austrian People's Education 1975)
• 1976: You don't need psychoanalysis to find out that life is a single graveyard of failed plans (TV-Dok./ Prod./buch / Dirie / 65 min.)
• 1977: Prejudice (A, TV-Dok./product./book / director / 60 min.)
• 1977: Looking for a new definition of education (TV-Dok./ Prod./Buch/Regie / 61 min.)
• 1978: Being old is a wonderful thing if you haven't forgotten what to begin with (TV document / production / book / director / 65 min.)
• 1979: Mother, courage, Mu and you're out! (TV document / production / book / direction / 45 min.)
• 1980: Vaeter (TV-Dok./product./book / director / 45 min.)
• 1980: All real life is an encounter (TV document / production / book / director / 45 min.)
• 1981: Integration (documentary / producer / book + co-author / director / 60 min.)
• 1981: EbS = energy gain through environmental protection (industrial film. Prod./book / director / 30 min.)
• 1989: Symptom und Angst I, II, III, (TV doc. Prod./Book / Director / 3x 50 min.)
• 1992: are we all fascists? (TV documentary production / book / director / 44 min.)
• 1993: Kurzes Gedächtnis (documentary / producer / screenplay / co-director / 44 min.)
• 1993: Coop Himmelblau - Construire Le Ciel (short film / prod. / 14 min.)
• 1999: If I should become Pope (documentary / prod. / 58 min.)
• 2000: The Jesuits (TV-Dok./ Prod. / 20 min.)
• 2000: A future that doesn't belong to us (TV documentary / prod. / 20 min.)
• 2001: Jerusalem - You holy city (documentary / prod. / 51 min.)
• 2001: George Tabori - writer as a stranger (TV documentary / co-production 43 min.)
• 2005: Ernst Fuchs - Eros & Mystik (TV documentary / prod.)
• 2006: Ernst Fuchs-With the eyes of the soul (documentary film / co-production 80 min.)
• 2007: Strong Daughters of God (Documentary / Prod.)
• 2007: Dress with a difference (TV documentary / product / 41 min.)
• 2008: The Charm of Allah (Documentary / Prod.)
• 2010: Geister (documentary / production / 45 min.)
• 2011: The fight for the cross (documentary / prod.)

Educational films

• 1994: When the body speaks for the soul (producer / book / director / 20 min.)
• 1998: Rudolf Hausner / painting and psychoanalysis (producer / book / director)

Opera, music play and music show productions on television

• 1966: Porgy in Vienna (TV show; book + co-author / director; 65 min.)
• 1968: Vienna Side Story (TV show; book + co-author / director; 72 min.)
• 1968: Black on White or the Almighty Pen (Opera) (Comp .: Kurt Anton Hueber, Director / 89 min.) (Salzburg Opera Prize 1968)
• 1971: Trip (FS-Musicplay) (comp .: Fatty George co-author / director / 85 min.)

TV and cinema films

• 1964: Our town (TV film author: Thornton Wilder; script / director 60 min.)
• 1965: Le petit Prince (TV film author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; script / director 75 min.)
• 1965: Beyond the Horizon (TV film; author: Eugene O'Neill; script / director 70 min.)
• 1966: The Glass Menagerie (TV movie author: Tennessee Williams; script / director; 60 min.)
• 1966: The Time and the Conways (TV film author: JBPriestley book / director 75 min.)
• 1967: Private Ear (TV film author: Peter Shaffer; script / director 65 min.)
• 1967: The Long Christmas Dinner (TV film author: Thornton Wilder; script / director 60 min.)
• 1967: Incident in Antioch (TV film, director 89 min.) (UNDA-TAUBE, Prize 1968)
• 1969: An evening for two (TV film / theater; director; 85 min.)
• 1969: Breakfast in the office (theater production and TV broadcast, director 85 min.)
• 1970: Rebel in the cassock / Camillo Torres (TV film; direction 105 min.)
• 1970: Regine Krause case (TV film; director 89 min)
• 1970: Mooney's trailer (TV film; script / director 97 min.)
• 1971: The procurator or the love of the beautiful Bianca (TV film; direction 90 min.)
• 1971: The Last Werkelmann (movie. 90 min. Director) (TV award of the Austrian national education 1972)
• 1972: Elisabeth, Empress of Austria (TV film; co-director / co-author 85 min.)
• 1973: The Death of a Mannequin (TV film, director 89 min.)
• 1974: Convicted in 1910 (TV film; director; 95 min.)
• 1976: I want to live (film / producer / book / director 98 min.)
• 1981: Your path is created while walking (TV-Film / Prod./Buch/Regie 94 min.)
• 1982: The nest under the rubble of the years (TV-Film / Prod./Buch/Regie 90 min.)
• 1983: The night of the four moons (movie / producer / book + co-author / director 102 min.)
• 1985: Up and down / Steig aus dem Luftballon (movie / prod. / Book + co-authors / director 101 min)

Awards

• 1968 Incident in Antioch - UNDA DOVE
• 1972 The last Werkelmann - People's Education Award
• 1975 We have to do everything that is possible to the best of our knowledge and belief - public education award
• 1976 God save us from Otto Wagner - Builder Award

literature

• Herbert Holba: Reclam's German Film Lexicon: Film artists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland , by Herbert Holba, Günter Knorr and Peter Spiegel. Reclam, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-15-010330-4 .
• “Austriaca” Cahiers universitaires d'information sur l'Autriche , Université de Haute-Normandie, November 1981, ISSN  0396-4590 .

Web links

• Jörg A. Eggers in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Die Presse , September 10, 1976
2. ↑ Reclams Deutsches Filmlexikon , Stuttgart 1984