Robert Schwentke

Robert Schwentke (* 1968 in Stuttgart ) is a German film director and screenwriter .

biography

childhood and education

Robert Schwentke discovered his enthusiasm for film at the age of eight or nine when he came across his grandfather's Super 8 camera in the basement of his parents' house. He first studied philosophy and literature for four semesters in Tübingen before moving to Columbia College Hollywood in Los Angeles to study film . During his studies in the USA, he made the short film Heaven! with Hannes Jaenicke . The film is about two greedy men who grab hold of the Mafia's money and have to fear for their lives in the hot and lonely desert of California . At the end of the 1990s Schwentke worked in Germany primarily as a screenwriter. Several episodes of Tatort came from his pen .

Robert Schwentke shot his first major feature film Tattoo in 2002 with Christian Redl and August Diehl in the leading roles. The film is about two police officers on the hunt for an unscrupulous serial killer who is after the coveted tattoos of a deceased Japanese artist . The semi-autobiographical tragic comedy Eierdiebe followed a year later , for which the director won the audience award at the Biberach Film Festival . The film tells the story of the student Martin Schwarz (played by Wotan Wilke Möhring ), who developed testicular cancer and began chemotherapy to avoid an operation .

Work in the USA

When Schwentke had problems financing his third film in Germany, the director went back to the USA and studied at the American Film Institute . His thriller Tattoo was shown in private test screenings in Hollywood , so that the Disney film studio soon became aware of him. The director originally planned to return to Europe after completing his training and make films there. But Schwentke was entrusted with the direction of the thriller Flightplan - Without Any Trace , which was a great commercial success at the North American box office in autumn 2005. In the film, the main actress Jodie Foster plays an airplane passenger whose child disappears without a trace on the transatlantic flight from Berlin to New York .

In 2007, the thriller Runaway Train was to follow, which is about a railroad worker who tries to save an unmanned train loaded with poison gas from wiping out a big city. This film was made by Tony Scott in 2010 under the name Unstoppable .

Schwentke also considered directing The Deep Blue Goodbye in 2006 . The film adaptation should be based on a novel by John D. MacDonald , which tells of a modern Robin Hood , but who gets his services dearly paid. Both film projects, however, were rejected and instead took Schwentke 2009, the Director of the between romantic drama and science fiction film settled , the wife of the time traveler . The young Canadian Rachel McAdams starred in the production of New Line Cinema , which is about a time traveler ( Eric Bana ) who meets his former lover at different points in his life.

Schwentke's next project was the film adaptation of the comic, RED - Older, Harder, Better in early 2010 . The story of four retired CIA agents (played by Bruce Willis , Morgan Freeman , John Malkovich and Helen Mirren ) was released in theaters in October 2010.

Another comic book adaptation followed in 2013, the fantasy action comedy RIPD with Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges in the leading roles. The film about supernatural police officers received mostly negative reviews and also disappointed at the box office.

In 2015, the film adaptation of the young people's book The Determination - Insurgent followed , the second part of the Die Determination series. This film was largely received negatively by the critics, but it was a success at the box office. Schwentke also directed the third part, Allegiant , which was released in March 2016.

The director has his permanent residence in Los Angeles .

Work in Europe

2017 Robert Schwentke turned in Poland and Germany The captain (Engl. The Captain ) with Max Hubacher in the title role. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival (TIFF). The captain was shown for the first time in Europe at the Donostia-San Sebastián Film Festival on September 29, 2017. The cinema release in Germany was on March 15, 2018.