Joe Berlinger

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Joe Berlinger , real name Joseph Berlinger (born October 30, 1961 in Bridgeport , Connecticut ), is an American documentary filmmaker . He often works with Bruce Sinofsky . Her best-known works include Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996), Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000), and Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011). The latter was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2012 .

Life

Berlinger comes from a Jewish family and from 1979 studied English literature and German at Colgate University , which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1983 and, according to his own statement, had no film career in mind. After completing his studies, he moved to Frankfurt am Main, where he worked for an advertising agency for several years. According to his own statement, he came to the film by chance when he accidentally got caught in a commercial. During his studies, he had majored in German studies and dealt with the Holocaust , which strongly influenced his later artistic choice of topics. He made his first documentary Brother's Keeper in 1992 about a man who was accused of killing his brother. The work has received awards including the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Directors Guild of America Award . This was followed by documentaries such as the Paradise trilogy (1996, 2000 and 2011), Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004) and Crude (2009), a documentary about the legal struggle of the indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon against Texaco (2001 merged with Chevron to ChevronTexaco, since 2005 Chevron) to provide financial compensation for the massive environmental destruction and human rights violations in the course of the oil production between 1964 and 1992. Chevron covered Berlinger with a flood of litigation (so-called SLAPP law suit) and demanded, among other things, the surrender of over 600 hours unused footage. Berlinger appealed, but finally had to accept the arbitration ruling of the higher authority, which only insignificantly reduced the scope of the material to be published. Berlinger later said he had spent about $ 1.3 million on legal and litigation costs and expressed doubts as to whether he would still be able to shoot documentaries about legal proceedings under the circumstances.

In 2000 Berlinger made the horror film Blair Witch 2 , the sequel to the surprise hit Blair Witch Project (1999). His only foray into the field of feature film was a slap and Berlinger received a nomination for the negative award Golden Raspberry .

Today he lives in New York City with his wife Loren Eiferman and their daughters . Berlinger speaks fluent German.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dave Itzkoff: Filmmakers Take Dual Roles in Quest for Truth. In: New York Times . January 6, 2012, accessed May 13, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Berlinger, Joe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berlinger, Joseph (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American documentary filmmaker
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Bridgeport , Connecticut , United States