Directing
Nov 22, 1938
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Herbert Achternbusch
Directing
Biography
Writer, actor, and German filmmaker born in Munich in 1938. He spent his childhood and youth in Bavaria, region which remains until today its major source of artistic inspiration. Their activity is very diverse: he has composed pieces for theater and radio scripts, translator, painter and sculptor. As different as his artistic activities is his work, and therefore difficult to classify. In the world of cinema, his career fits approaches independent, mostly defined by a position too personalistic, provocative, that has left a deep imprint on works eminently conceptual and avant-garde, as well as suggesting in criticism of the subjects addressed (religion, society, geographical framework in which wandering people, etc.). His films just transcend the commercial sector; It is one of the most followed by seekers of original, stories of passes in areas interested in film culture. His anarchist surrealistic films are not known to a wide audience in Germany, although one of them, Das Gespenst (The Ghost), caused a scandal in 1983 because of its alleged blasphemous content. Werner Herzog, a director of the New German Cinema, based his film Heart of Glass on a story by Achternbusch.
Feature Films (35)
A portrait of Attwenger, the duo from Upper Austria (Markus Binder and Hans-Peter Falkner). The attempt to unite the worlds of Austrian folk music and hip-hop has already succeeded in the music of Attwenger.
Attwenger Film
Director Andi Niessner was production manager on Achternbusch's last two major feature films in 1996 and 1998. In conversation, Niessner manages to reveal the universal artist in a previously unknown intimacy and openness: Achternbusch talks about his parents, his childhood in Lower Bavaria and Munich, and his early days as a writer and filmmaker. We learn who and what influenced him, what his relationship with Bavaria is like, how his attitude toward the church has changed, and what his life is like today.
Achternbusch
Stalingrad, 1942: just as he is complaining about the "blockheads" who are in control, a German named Herbert gets hit. Fast forward forty years after the war to Munich's Hofgarten, where in front of the patched-up ruins of the Army Museum, Herbert reappears, mistakenly believing he is still in Stalingrad, which the victorious Germans have destroyed and rebuilt in the image of Munich.
Heal Hitler!
A man who is dissatisfied with his senseless existence in his family-life and social status steals the uniform of a policeman and then enters the Oktoberfest. Now he is somebody, he is important, he can help, people respect him, etc. His wife, other relatives and some friends start to follow him while he gets some new acquaintances.
Beer Chase
Jesus returns to present-day Bavaria, walks around Munich in a somewhat dazed manner and strikes up an affair with a nun, arguing that they are married anyway. Therefore, he refers to himself as "Ober" (waiter), obviously the male form of "Oberin" (Mother Superior). He occasionally transforms into a snake when being afraid and is finally carried up into the sky by the nun, who transforms into a bird of prey.
The Ghost
An anxious teacher (played, as is the lead role in all his films, by the director) sits in a beer garden on the hill of the Andechs monastery. While flies drown in his mug of beer, he confronts a life of failure: the wife he ignored, the child he neglected, the teaching duties he has shirked, and his doomed efforts at winning tenure from school officials. Only a dream from the past-the memory of a former liaison with a film star with whom he shared "the Andechs feeling, a feeling that we are not alone" - provides sustenance. Despite an unexpected series of events, longing in Achternbusch's world ultimately remains stronger than fulfilment and thirst better than beer.
Das Andechser Gefühl
After several years in a coma, the Comanche, an Indian, wakes up in a Bavarian hospital. But reality does not match the dreams he had of it during his coma: it seems bleak and barren to him. The Comanche shows the audience his view of everyday life in Germany, with a collage of images and language demonstrating the absurdity of this reality.
Der Komantsche
A filmmaker (Achternbusch) is just released from prison and has to make a living with his craft again. He is followed by a reporter who wants an interview and winds up at an inn called "Zum Neger Erwin," run by a woman whom he convinces to be the leading lady in his planned production. As the story continues, the filmmaker finds ample excuses to pan the financial powers that be and to paint the benighted and talented seekers after funds as slaves to the funding process.
Der Neger Erwin
Television & Series (1)
This documentary takes an entertaining and informative look at the German Heimatfilm phenomenon. The first part examines the history of the genre since the 1950s, while the second part presents crowd favorites of the genre.