The people behind the camera: Andreas Dresen
Andreas Dresen is one of the most successful directors of recent German cinema and a filmmaker of reunification par excellence. Andreas Dresen was born August 16, 1968, in Gera, East Germany. He grew up in Schwerin and started shooting his own amateur movies since the late '70s.
His breakthrough came with the episodic film "Nachtgestalten" ("Night Shapes"), which ran at the Berlinale in 1999. This key Berlin film is a dry comedy that takes place one memorable night in June, six years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The movie won several awards, including the German Film Award in Silver and the German Critics' Award.
Two years later, "Halbe Treppe" ("Grill Point") turned out to be a great success, winning him the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, the German Film Award in Silver and directing awards at the festivals in Ghent and Chicago. With wry realism and playful humor, Dresen tells the story of adultery among friends unfolding in a small East German town.
Dresen celebrated his greatest popular success so far when "Sommer vorm Balkon" ("Summer in Berlin") was released in 2006. In "Summer in Berlin" Dresen examines the humdrum lives of best friends Katrin and Nike who live in the same apartment building in Berlin. Amongst other awards, the movie received an Ernst Lubitsch Award and the Bavarian Film Prize for Best Director.
The drama “Cloud 9” (2008), which tells the story of three older people who discover that life and especially physical love are not yet over, won the German Film Prize 2009 for best director as well as the Film Prize in Bronze.
