Oscar Martay

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Oscar Martay (born August 22, 1920 in Stowbtsy, Belarus ; † October 31, 1995 Berlin ) was a Jewish emigrant in the USA . From 1948 he worked as a film officer for the American military government in West Berlin . He was the initiator of the Berlin International Film Festival .

Life

Oscar Martay was born as Oscar Machtej . Before he was drafted into the US Army, he carried out advertising for 700 cinemas in the American Midwest . From 1946 he was film commissioner at the US State Department and from 1948 film officer at the American High Commissioner (HICOG) for the US Information Service Branch (ISB), a forerunner of the United States Information Agency (USIA) in Berlin. As a film commissioner, his task was to oversee the German film industry and, above all, to approve German film productions. At the same time he had a decisive influence on the game operations in West Berlin cinemas. Martay was also involved in founding the border cinemas on the East Berlin sector border , where films were shown at a reduced price for residents of East Berlin.

Oscar and Ingeborg Martay grave site

On Martay's initiative, a committee was formed in 1950, which included himself, the British press and film officer George Turner, two representatives of the Greater Berlin City Council, four representatives of the German film industry and a journalist. Martay offered the America House in Kleiststrasse as the conference venue . Together they laid the foundation stone for the opening festival, which took place in June 1951. The American interest in the festival was, during the “ Cold War ” period, to create an East-facing “showcase of Western culture” while at the same time demonstrating its superiority. Martay's efforts made the American military administration one of the festival's main financiers. "In the first years of the Berlinale it was thanks to Martay's influence that the American military government helped the festival out of financial bottlenecks with loans ..." In 1950, he applied for an ERP loan of 3 million DM, which benefited the Berlin film industry.

On June 6, 1951, the Berlin International Film Festival opened with Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca in the Titania Palace. The film scholar Alfred Bauer was selected as the organizer and director of the festival . After the end of the war, Bauer had worked as a film advisor for the British military government and recommended himself through the Compendium German Feature Film Almanac 1929–1950 , which is considered a standard work.

During the first biennale, Martay was awarded the Golden Bear , the main prize, for his work on realizing the festival .

In 1953 Martay retired from the service of the US State Department and decided to stay in West Berlin. In the same year he worked as an assistant director in the Heinz Rühmann film Postman Müller and in 1954 in the same function in the films Auf der Reeperbahn at half past twelve , directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner and Emil and the detectives directed by Robert A. Stemmle .

In 1955 he married the actress with the stage name Renate Barken , who then called herself Ingeborg Martay. In 1957 Ingeborg Martay founded the TV / film and television production company Zenit-Film Ingeborg Martay in West Berlin. Oscar Martay acted as production manager.

The marriage resulted in two sons. Oscar and Ingeborg Martay are buried in the forest cemetery in Zehlendorf .

Web links

Commons : Oscar Martay  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hans Borgelt: Filmstadt Berlin , Nicolai, Berlin 1979 ISBN 3-87584070-4 p. 71
  2. ^ Oscar Martay biography. ( Memento from November 13, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) berlinale.de
  3. ^ Heide Fehrenbach: Cinema in Democratizing Germany: Reconstructing National Identity After Hitler , Saga, ISBN 0-8078-6137-5 , p. 236 ff.
  4. ↑ Marijke de Valck: Film Festivals: From European Geopolitics to Global Cinephilia , Amsterdam University Press, 2007 ISBN 978-90-5356-192-8 , p. 52 ff.
  5. ^ Website of the Berlinale archive
  6. ↑ Berlin International Film Festival
  7. ↑ film portal . German Film Institute - DIF
  8. ↑ Film archives online (access to inventory overviews of numerous European film archives)
personal data
SURNAME Martay, Oscar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Machtej, Oscar (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film officer and assistant director
DATE OF BIRTH 22nd August 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Stowbtsy
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1995
Place of death Berlin