Thomas Knauf

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Thomas Knauf (* 1951 in Halle ) is a German screenwriter .

biography

Thomas Knauf graduated from high school and later earned his living in different professions, including as a locksmith, theater prop master and film poster painter. From 1971 to 1976 he gained his first experience as an assistant director for GDR television. From 1976 to 1980 he studied film studies in Potsdam-Babelsberg . He then worked as an assistant director on István Szabó's Oscar- winning feature film Mephisto .

From 1981 to 1990 Knauf worked as a screenwriter for DEFA . During this time he provided the script for Michael Gwisdek's debut feature film, Treffen in Travers , which depicts an episode in the life of the Jacobin intellectual, world traveler and revolutionary Georg Forster (1754–1794). In 1990 he wrote the film script for Peter Kahane's The Architects , in which an almost forty-year-old architect received his first major commission. The imaginative planning of a cultural center in a new Berlin district, however, stands in the way of the constant distrust of the superiors.

After reunification in 1990, Knauf moved to the United States for several years , where he worked in New York as video and as a television presenter. He was also the foreign correspondent for the German weekly newspaper Freitag . In 1995/96 he was the author and director of the ORB culture magazine Querstraße . Since the mid-1990s, Knauf has directed several documentaries for which he wrote the scripts, including We Were So Free (2008). The cinematic essay is about theater director Jürgen Gosch (1943–2009) and the shooting of his film Experiments (1980/81), Gosch's only feature film work.

Thomas Knauf lives in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg . In addition to working as a screenwriter, he has been giving screenwriting seminars since the mid-1990s. Teaching positions have taken him to the University of Film and Television Potsdam , the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts and the German Film and Television Academy Berlin .

Filmography (selection)

Screenwriter

Director

  • 1979: One size too small (short film)
  • 1992: The Schinkel von Babelsberg (documentary film)
  • 1994: Back to Taree (documentary)
  • 1995: Nepal, land between heaven and earth (documentary)
  • 1995: Nepal, land between yesterday and tomorrow (documentary)
  • 1995: Shalom Israel (documentary)
  • 2002: Return to Tribecastan (documentary - not finished)
  • 2004: Klaus Kuron - spy on his own behalf (documentary)
  • 2004: Marcuse's Ashes (documentary)
  • 2008: We Were So Free (Documentary)
  • 2014: Holtz - Conversations About Nothing (Documentary)
  • 2016: When We Were the Future (episode documentary, episode: The Short Vacation of 68)
  • 2016: Another day in my life - the artist Urs Jaeggi (documentary)
  • Film rolls
  • 1986: Raven father
  • 2013: Casanova (docudrama) supporting role

Literary works

  • 1997: Berlin train station. Edited by Katja Lange-Müller. dtv - co-author
  • 2000: Beyond Hollywood. Publishing house of the authors - co-author
  • 2004: Orange moon in no man's land. Edited by Torsten Schulz. VISTAS-Verlag Berlin - co-author
  • 2008: Scenario 2 (Bertz & Fischer Verlag) - The Stranger's Friend: Ulrich Plenzdorf
  • 2009: The Devil's Diary. In: Lettre International, issue 86, autumn 2009
  • 2010: Scenario 4 (Bertz & Fischer Verlag) - Pat Hobby's Babelsberg-Stories
  • 2011: Scenario 5 (Bertz & Fischer Verlag) - The man who lost his head for a joke
  • 2011: limit / over - texts for Urs Jaeggi. Stroemfeld Verlag - co-author
  • 2011: Babelsberg-Stories - Experiences of a screenwriter in East and West (Alexander Verlag) ISBN 978-3-89581-242-2
  • 2011: Good morning, Mr. Bergman! In: Lettre International, edition 95, winter 2011
  • 2012: Scenario 6 (Bertz & Fischer Verlag 2012) - The Chancellor's Nights (selection)
  • 2012: The Golem from Prenzlauer Berg. A Prenzlauer Berg thriller. be.bra verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-89809-526-6
  • 2012: Berliner Weisse with shot. A Prenzlauer Berg thriller. be.bra verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-89809-527-3
  • 2012: The Yellow Submarine. In: Lettre International, issue 98, autumn 2012
  • 2012: About diving in ice. In: Lettre International, edition 101, summer 2013
  • 2013: murder keeps you young. A Prenzlauer Berg thriller. be.bra verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-89809-532-7
  • 2013: La Zona Rossa. In: Lettre International, edition 103, winter 2013
  • 2014: Scenario 8 (Bertz & Fischer 2014) - The right to unhappiness
  • 2014: Prague in winter. In: Lettre International, issue 104, spring 2014
  • 2014: Warsaw Sketches. In: Lettre International, issue 107, winter 2014
  • 2014: The Chancellor's Nights. Narrative. Divan Verlag Berlin, ISBN 978-3-86327-024-7
  • 2015: Scenario 9 (Bertz & Fischer 2015) - The voice of Monica Vitti
  • 2016: Scenario 10 (Bertz & Fischer 2016) - three film stories from 'Lonely Men'
  • 2018: The god of small dogs. Buchverlag Stangl, Paderborn 2018, ISBN 978-3-93496-990-2 .

Awards

  • 1988: GDR radio play award for The Hour of the Moment
  • 1988: Max Ophüls Prize for foreplay
  • 1989: Meeting in Travers Officially selected in Cannes 1989 (Un Certain Regard),
  • 1990: GDR Critics' Prize 1990 for meeting in Travers
  • 1990: Main prize and prizes for the best male and female actors of the GDR National Feature Film Festival for Treffen in Travers
  • 1990: Special Prize and Prize of the Catholic Church of the GDR National Feature Film Festival for The Architects
  • 1994: Award for best lecture at the University of Chico, California

Autobiography

  • Thomas Knauf: Babelsberg stories. Stories by a scriptwriter between East and West , Alexander Verlag, Berlin Cologne, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89581-242-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Schenk, Ralf: Much Beckett, little Brecht . In: Berliner Zeitung , June 11, 2009, issue 133, p. K02
personal data
SURNAME Knauf, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Halle (Saale)