Konrad Petzold

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Konrad Petzold (born April 26, 1930 in Radebeul ; † November 12, 1999 in Kleinmachnow ) was a German film director who directed numerous DEFA children's films and so-called " DEFA Indian films ". He was also a screenwriter , actor and assistant director.

life and work

Konrad Petzold was born in Radebeul in 1930 as the youngest of six children of a lathe operator and a housewife. His older siblings worked in a left-wing amateur cabaret until the National Socialists seized power and were involved in the socialist youth association. After the end of the Second World War and completed training as a mechanic, Petzold, like his siblings before, became the organizer of an amateur theater group at the Radebeul youth stage .

After he had passed the entrance exam for the DEFA junior studios in Berlin in 1949, he attended the local drama school there until 1951. During this time he played in small supporting roles in films such as the Benthin family and The Boys of Kranichsee , and assisted director Martin Hellberg at the Dresden State Theater. Only at the second attempt did he pass the drama school's final exam.

In 1952, the state government of Saxony delegated him to the FAMU film school in Prague to study directing . He was also available to DEFA as an assistant director. In 1956 he received the diploma for his children's film Die Fahrt nach Bamsdorf . He gained his first state recognition through the youth film Der Moorhund , which depicted the deployment of soldiers on the inner-German border as a fight against smugglers and criminals.

On the other hand, Das Kleid , an adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale The Emperor's New Dresses , was suspected of criticizing the regime in disguise and banned after several cuts in the summer of 1962. By The hunt for the boots , who told the search of workers' children to the murderer of her communist youth leader in the Weimar Republic, Petzold was able to rehabilitate . Now and in the hour of my death is about a journalist who comes across Nazi criminals in the FRG, and Das Lied vom Trompeter glorifies the life of a working-class boy.

Several scenes had to be cut from the great success of Alfons Zitterbacke to a rebellious boy based on the story by Gerhard Holtz-Baumert . Petzold then distanced himself from the censored version by removing his name from the opening credits. He then made four DEFA Indian films, which he presented as a “counterweight to the westerns of the capitalist film industry”. His efforts to direct a film about the colonial times of Africa and the uprisings of the locals failed. Petzold's later films received little attention.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, his directorial activity came to a complete standstill, as his work was no longer in demand in the Federal Republic of Germany.

His written estate is in the archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

Filmography

actor

Director

Awards

literature

  • Ralf Schenk: Konrad Petzold . In: CineGraph , Lg. 33. edition text + kritik, 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Petzold zu Eichler, 1976, after Ralf Schenk: Konrad Petzold . In: CineGraph , Lg. 33. edition text + kritik, 2000.
  2. ^ Konrad-Petzold-Archiv Inventory overview on the website of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.
personal data
SURNAME Petzold, Konrad
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film director
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Radebeul
DATE OF DEATH November 12, 1999
Place of death Kleinmachnow