Award Winners Panels Training Networking Mediathek / Media Centre Pictures

The Way It Is - A Master Class
with Klaus Wildenhahn

Friday, 22 October 2010

Klaus Wildenhahn is one of the leading contemporary documentary filmmakers in Germany. Inspired by American colleagues like Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles, he became one of the pioneers of German "Direct Cinema" in the 1960s and has been a major influence in the documentary cinema of the Federal Republic of Germany since then.

Wildenhahn's approach to the people he films is serious and careful, revealing the social processes beyond the political and cultural public life. His method is marked by patient observation, long shots and minimalist commentary, giving his films a kind of pure lyricism that needs no dramatisation or emotional manipulation.

In his Master Class, Wildenhahn will discuss his methods of filmmaking and documentary observation, which influenced generations of filmmakers. In honour of his 80th birthday, DOK Leipzig dedicates a tribute programme to the maestro that will feature a small selection from his almost 60 films, produced between 1961 and 2000, most of them for the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (North German Public Television).

Wildenhahn's films won a number of awards, including the Prize of the Mannheimer Filmwoche for the Best Television Film, the critics' prize Goldener Bildschirm (Golden Television Screen) and the Golden Adolf-Grimme-Preis.

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