Jan Franksen

Jan Franksen (born February 15, 1937 in Bremen , † January 9, 2004 in Berlin ) was a German filmmaker . Since the beginning of the third television program, he worked mainly for the broadcaster Free Berlin as a freelance director and author . He contributed significantly to the development of the television genre film essay .

Life

After his childhood in Bremen, West Prussia and Nienburg / Weser , Jan Franksen came to Berlin in 1946. In 1958 he graduated from the Canisius College there . He studied journalism , art history , history and theater studies at the Free University of Berlin , but did not graduate. Instead, he got involved on various stages as an assistant director . In 1962 he started working for the Sender Free Berlin (SFB), initially on the radio. Soon after the third television program was founded, he became increasingly active as a television author and director , supported by Hans-Werner Kock . His focus was on cultural and youth issues. In 1969 he reported on Joseph Beuys' happening at the Berlin Academy of the Arts . He was also active as an artist, for example as a director of experimental plays by Konrad Bayer and Gerhard Rühm . In the fall of 1976 Franksen interviewed the writer WG Sebald . A lively, creative exchange ensued, which also shaped Sebald's career. Franksen produced numerous experimental films for the SFB, especially film essays with a scientific claim, for example portraits of Carl Sternheim , Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Alfred Kerr . Franksen also worked as a lecturer at the University of Fine Arts and the Free University of Berlin.

Awards

• 1992: Adolf Grimme Prize , special prize from the Minister of Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia, for people and powers: Stalinallee.

Selected films

• Kreuzberg palette. On the edge of a Berlin picture market (1964)
• Literature and film: anecdote based on Kleist (1975), participation in a television experiment with Oswald Wiener , KP Brehmer and Hartmut Bitomsky , who each filmed a text by Heinrich von Kleist and then discussed it (production manager: Harun Farocki )
• Carl Sternheim. Notes on Life and Work (1977)
• The wanderer and his shadow. Friedrich Nietzsche (1983)
• The Winckelmann myth. One Attempt (1988)
• After the first future. The writer Jurek Becker (1990)
• People and Powers: Stalinallee. A road as a symbol (1991)
• It ... was ... worth it. Portrait of Alfred Kerr, Critic (1992)
• The Rathenaus (1994)
• The Koenigsallee (1996)
• From Schloßplatz to Fischerkiez: The Breite Strasse in Berlin (1998)
• Gottfried Semper. An architect of the 19th century (2003), together with Karin Reiss

literature

• Christoph Rosenthal: "The reality of the film is fictional". The Berlin film essayist Jan Franksen. Tectum, Baden-Baden 2018, ISBN 978-3-8288-4213-7 .
• Uwe Schütte: Through the back door. On WG Sebald's unpublished series of scenes about the life and death of Immanuel Kant. In: Ders., About WG Sebald. De Gruyter, Berlin 2017, pp. 65–98, ( PDF ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Jan Franksen in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Berliner Morgenpost - Berlin: Berlin compact . ( Morgenpost.de [accessed on December 3, 2017]).
2. ^ Jan Franksen: Happening, March 27, 1969, N3 television
3. ↑ Uwe Schütte: About WG Sebald . De Gruyter, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-045745-2 , pp. 65-98 .
4. ↑ Hachmeister, Lutz (ed.): Television and its price. Materials on the history of the Adolf Grimme Prize 1973–1993 . Bad Heilbrunn 1994, p. 207 .
5. ↑ Bayerischer Rundfunk: On the 300th birthday of Johann Joachim Winckelmann: The Winckelmann Myth - An Attempt | BR.de . November 9, 2017 ( archive.org [accessed December 5, 2017]).
6. ↑ SWISS FILMS: Gottfried Semper - An Architect of the 19th Century. Retrieved on December 3, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).