Film director Volker Schlöndorff (b. 1939 in Wiesbaden, Germany), who gained worldwide fame and popularity with his highly acclaimed film version of “The Tin Drum” (originally titled “Die Blechtrommel,” 1979, Academy Award winner as Best Foreign-Language film), based on the novel by author Günter Grass (1927-2015), recently finished in New York his latest film, “Return to Montauk.”

Formerly a member of the French New Wave, when in the early 1960s he was assistant director to French filmmakers such as Louis Malle, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Pierre Melville, then a few years later in his home country along with Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder one of the founders and driving forces behind the New German Cinema, he was capable of introducing his Neuer Deutscher Film movement to mainstream audiences when he made “Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum” (1975, a.k.a. “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum”).

Mr. Schlöndorff, if I’m correct, during your formative years, the Paris Cinémathèque was very crucial to you?

Absolutely. I resided near the Place du Panthéon, and two hundred meters further down the road was the Paris Cinématheque. For two years, I was there every night, first buying my tickets, but then a film historian became aware of me and told me, ‘We need a live translator here for the German films without subtitles.’ So from then, on part-time, I was sitting in the front row of the Cinémathèque with the microphone in my hand and do simultaneous translations of German films to French. Sitting next to me, you had Jean-Luc Godard, always wearing a dark coat, held together with his hands, with Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut. But also, from then on I had free entry to see all the films. So living on a very tight budget, I could see three movies a day. That was my school of filmmaking. And to this day, silent films and black and white films are somehow my main inspiration, because it was the early influence.

Is that also a reason why you made so many years later your documentary about Billy Wilder [1906-2002]?

Well, I don’t think I ever saw a film of his at the Cinémathèque. He was considered too commercial for them [laughs]. Maybe “Double Indemnity” [1944] played, but other than that, his movies like “Some Like It Hot” [1959], “The Apartment” [1960] and so on, they were playing on the Champs-Elysées: after all, they were the major success films at the time. I first met Billy Wilder in 1975 or 1976 when he came to Munich to do “Fedora,” he had seen “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum” [1975], and from then on—to his death—we were close friends. Nobody could ever speak better about films and filmmaking than he did. That was the reason why I always wanted to record our talks. He was not dogmatic, he was always practical and funny, but he had a strong moral point of view about human decency. That is what’s so wonderful about him. He knew all weaknesses of human nature. In that sense, I am extremely old-fashioned, and those wonderful filmmakers like Billy Wilder or Fred Zinnemann [1907-1997]—very close friends—they shared the same views, and they also worked on their first film together, “People on Sunday” [“Menschen am Sonntag,” 1930]. There was this attitude that if you are privileged to work in films—film is a very powerful medium, then you also have an obligation to use it with extreme care. A very special obligation: you can manipulate people, so film just for cheap thrills… that’s not allowed. That will make people cynical, and it will destroy human decency. People sometimes said that Billy Wilder was the most cynical of all filmmakers, which is not true at all. He was funny but never cynical. He was skeptical, and he always had a strong attitude as to what a filmmaker is allowed to do or not allowed to do. It starts with aesthetics like, for example, in a scene, a mother who is told that her son was just run over by a car. You are not allowed to put your camera on the face of her to film her grief: that is indecent. You don’t do that. You tell her offstage, and then afterwards, she comes in front of the camera, or she turns her back to the camera and you stay on her back. These kinds of very simple human qualities is what people like Fred Zinnemann, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra did—I mean, the whole generation of these filmmakers, going as far as David Lean in British films, you know, and that is the best lesson I learned from them—if I learned anything like at all. I don’t know if we learn anything like that from anybody, it just confirmed my own feeling. But sometimes it’s helpful if you meet other people with the same point of view; it fortifies in your natural behavior.

The first of the six-part documentary Mr. Schlöndorff made about Billy Wilder

Literature is very important in your work, isn’t it? You either write your own screenplays or adapt interesting literary works.

Well, for a long time, I didn’t dare to write myself, which today I regret. Lately, I have been writing my own screenplays, and I am happy doing it. Probably when I was younger, I would not have been able to do it. I tried it a few times, and I was very unhappy with the result, and so I turned to literature—I knew a lot of writers—and I learned to understand how they were working, how they lived their lives, how they experienced their lives and wrote about it. So they often spent many years on finding out how to tell a story, how to shape the characters. And when you become a filmmaker, half is done already when you got your script. Rather than looking at reality and looking at the real story, it would take you years and years like a writer to get to it and how to tell it. So here, half the work is done by someone who spent one, or two, or maybe five or ten years writing it. How can you ever do better? So that is a kind of practical reason. But there is also a more profound reason—like most people when I was fifteen, I was lost in the world; I didn’t understand anything. Then I started reading novels, and I had the feeling that through literature, I began to understand the world and human beings, emotions—everything. And even today, I am living in a literary universe; I still read a lot, and I think literature constitutes the better part of my life. So I made my love and my passion for literature kind of the subject of my work; I could keep working and reading at the same time, and even get paid to read [laughs].

When you got a new script on your desk, or in front of you, is it a finished product by then? Do you have your film in mind already?

It is pretty much finished. Billy Wilder was extremely on this: he had his screenwriter [I.A.L. Diamond, 1920-1988] sitting on the set with him to see that Billy did not change a comma in the dialogue. I don’t go as far as that. Last week, I finished a film which I wrote with an Irish novelist, and as I saw one of the scenes in the cutting room, I realized that I had changed something on the set, with the actors, because it sounded better, and so later I found out it was not better. Actually, it was much worse. It even ruins the scene which I have to throw out now, and I thought, ‘If only I had someone like Mr. Diamond sitting behind me!’ [Laughs]. Because you spent weeks and months sitting there to write, to think about it, and why this character does this and says that, then you get confused on the set with all the actors, and all of a sudden, you think you can do better. So you have to work very carefully on the screenplay, try it again, do a lot of rehearsals with the actors the way I do—then you can still change when you have the feeling that it doesn’t quite work, but once you’re on the set, with the time pressure, people and noises all around you, you’d better stick to your screenplay. And if it doesn’t work, you’ll write a better screenplay next time. But if you improvise on the set, you divert from your screenplay, and things might turn out wrong; you will never know. ‘Was it the fault of the screenplay, or was it the fault of your improvisation on the set?’

What would you consider so far your proudest achievement?

I don’t think in terms like that. My proudest achievement is to just keep on working. I could say that “The Tin Drum” [1979] was my biggest success, but it also has to do with all the circumstances. This wonderful book [published in 1959] by Günther Grass came to me, Jean-Claude Carrière would work with me on the screenplay, then I found little David Bennent to do the leading role, we had this beautiful cinematography. So all of these elements came together and made the movie. In other films, one or two elements get lost… You can’t always see what the achievement is. I like the last one I did, which is rare for me because I am very critical in the cutting room. So I may be wrong because it’s very personal, and I cannot judge it. You know, besides making films, I am also a marathon runner. I did fifteen marathons. The thing is: keep going, don’t put too much energy into the first few kilometers because you still got a long way to go. Looking back now, I think the achievement is that I can still make films, and I still do them in the exact same spirit as when we started with the Nouvelle Vague. I never betrayed my early convictions.

Can you tell something about your latest film?

The film is called “Return to Montauk,” and it’s the story of a novelist—it could also be a filmmaker—who comes to New York for a week to present his last novel or his last film, so he does interviews and talks about his work. His wife is in his company, but the novel he is presenting is about his big love, the love of his life which he had seventeen years ago in New York, and which in his mind has become like a myth, like a legend. And when he meets this woman in New York, the whole thing starts all over again after seventeen years. In the process, it’s wonderful and devastating for everybody involved. So it’s a drama about a romance. I think in Pariscope they would write category drame sentimentale. I don’t know whether it is going to be existentialist, or a comical, or hopefully both. Swedish actor Stellan Sarsgård plays the leading role, with Nina Hoss, the great German actress, and with Niels Arestrup in a small part.

Do you always have carte blanche when making a film?

Mostly. Except for some projects I did in America. But I never had any problem with producers and final cut. I mean, I try to tell the story the best way possible, and good producers try to do that too. I never had a major conflict about editing. I’m not stubborn; if I feel they may have a point, if they think it’s too long, or whatever, I will listen. This one also gets the help of Gaumont because of the success of “Diplomacy” [2014]. They didn’t give me carte blance, but they supported me.

Looking back, how revolutionary was the Nouvelle Vague?

That was very revolutionary. Before I made films, I read the articles that Truffaut wrote in Art. I was sixteen or seventeen, and I didn’t understand everything he wrote, but it was pretty clear that this was revolutionary [laughs]. I mean, the incredible freedom and courage of judging, discarding whole things—sometimes unjustly—that was the spirit of the Nouvelle Vague. They changed world cinema. There would not have been any “Easy Rider,” no Milos Foreman, no New German Cinema, without this incredible moment when the Nouvelle Vague reinvented cinema. I can say that. I have been a part of it; I have been an observer, and I was an assistant to them. Even today, sixty years later, the digital revolution is nothing compared to them. It changed the way of looking at actors, the way of behaving with actors, admitting actors as part of the creation—not just creators on the screen. So it was a big thing.

Brussels Film Festival, Brussels (Belgium)
June 17, 2016

“Die Blechtrommel” (1979, trailer)

FILMS

ZAZIE DANS LE MÉTRO, a.k.a. ZAZIE IN THE SUBWAY (1960) DIR – PROD Louis Malle ASST DIR Volker Schlöndorff SCR Louis Malle, Jean-Paul Rappeneau CAM Henri Raichi MUS André Pontin, Fiorenzo Carpi ED Kenout Peltier CAST Catherine Demongeot, Philippe Noiret, Hubert Deschamps, Carla Marlier, Annie Fratinelli, Vittorio Caprioli, Sacha Distel

L’ANNÉE DERNIÈRE À MARIENBAD, a.k.a. LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961) DIR Alain Resnais ASST DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Pierre Courau, Raymond Froment, Anatole Dauman SCR Alain Robbe-Grillet CAM Sacha Vierny MUS Francis Seyrig ED Henri Colpi, Jasmine Chasney CAST Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff, Françoise Bertin, Luce Garcia-Ville, Héléna Kornel

LÉON MORIN, PRÊTRE, a.k.a. LÉON MORIN, PRIEST and THE FORGIVEN SINNER (1961) DIR Jean-Pierre Melville ASST DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard SCR Jean-Pierre Melville, Béatrice Beck (novel by Béatrice Beck) CAM Henri Decaë MUS Martial Solal ED Jacqueline Meppiel CAST Jean-Paul Belmondo, Emmanuelle Riva, Irène Tunc, Nicole Mirel, Gisèle Grimm, Volker Schlöndorff

VIE PRIVÉE, a.k.a. A VERY PRIVATE LIFE (1961) DIR Louis Malle ASST DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Christine Gouze-Renal SCR Louis Malle, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Jean Ferry CAM Henri Decae MUS Fiorenze Carpi ED Kenout Peltier CAST Brigitte Bardot, Marcello Mastroianni, Grégoire von Rezzori, Éleanore Hirt, Ursula Kubler, Jacqueline Doyen, Jean-Claude Brialy, Louis Malle

LE DOULOS, a.k.a. THE FINGER MAN (1962) DIR Jean-Pierre Melville ASST DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Carlo Ponti, Georges de Beauregard SCR Jean-Pierre Melville (novel by Pierre Lesou) CAM Nicolas Hayer MUS Paul Misraki ED Monique Bonnot CAST Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Regianni, Jean Desailly, René Lefèvre, Marcel Cuvelier, Philippe March, Fabienne Dali, Michel Piccoli, Volker Schlöndorff

LA CHANCE ET L’AMOUR, a.k.a. CHANCE AT LOVE (1964) DIR Claude Berri, Charles L. Bitsch, Eric Schlumberger, Bertrand Tavernier SCR – CAM Charles L. Bitsch CAST Michel Auclair, Bernard Blier, Maurice Chevalier, Paulette Dubost, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Stefania Sandrelli, Volker Schöndorff

DER JUNGE TÖRLESS, a.k.a. YOUNG TORLESS (1966) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Louis Malle, Franz Seitz SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Herbert Asmodi (novel by Robert Musil) CAM Franz Rath MUS Hans Werner Henze ED Claus von Boro CAST Mathieu Carrière, Marian Seidowsky, Bernd Tischer, Barbara Steele, Lotte Ledl, Jean Launay

MORD UND TOTSCHLAG, a.k.a. DEGREE OF MURDER (1967) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Ron Houwer SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Gregor von Rezzori, Niklas Frank, Arne Boyer CAM Franz Rath MUS Brian Jones ED Claus von Boro CAST Anita Pallenberg, Hans Peter Hallwachs, Manfred Fischbeck, Werner Enke

DER PAUKENSPIELER, a.k.a. THE TYMPANIST (1967) DIR Volker Schlöndorff, Helmut Meewes, Herbert Rimbach, Franz Seitz, Rolf Thiele, Bernhard Wicki PROD Franz Seitz SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Helmut Meewes, Helmut Qualtinger, Herbert Rimbach, Franz Seitz, Rolf Thiele, Bernhard Wicki CAM Helmut Meewes, Werner Kurz MUS Hans Werner Henze ED Klaus Dudenhöfer, Jane Seitz, Claus von Boro CAST Hans Kraus, Helmut Lohner, Helmut Qualtinger, Maria Singer, Heidelinde Weis, Kurt Zips

MICHAEL KOHLHAAS – DER REBELL, a.k.a. MAN ON HORSEBACK (1969) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Rob Houwer, Jerry Bick SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Clement Biddle Wood, Edward Bond (novel by Heinrich von Kleist) CAM Willy Kurant MUS Peter Sandloff ED Claus von Boro CAST David Warner, Anna Karina, Thomas Holtzmann, Michael Gothard, Kurt Meisel, Anton Diffring, Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richards

MATHIAS KNEISSL (1970) DIR Reinhard Hauff PROD Philippe Pilliod SCR Reinhard Hauff, Martin Sperr CAM W.P. Hassenstein MUS Peer Raben ED Jean-Claude Piroué CAST Hans Brenner, Ruth Drexel, Eva Mattes, Hanna Schygulla, Frank Frey, Péter Müller, Andrea Stary, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Volker Schlöndorff

DIE MORAL DER RUTH HALBFASS, a.k.a. MORALS OF RUTH HALBFASS (1972) DIR – PROD Volker Schlöndorff SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Hamm CAM Konrad Kotowski, Klaus Müller-Laue MUS Friedrich Meyer ED Claus von Boro CAST Senta Berger, Peter Ehrlich, Helmut Griem, Margarethe von Trotta, Marian Seidowsky, Karl-Heinz Merz

STROHFEUER, a.k.a. A FREE WOMAN (1972) DIR – PROD Volker Schlöndorff SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta CAM Sven Nykvist MUS Stanley Myers ED Suzanne Baron CAST Maria Brunner, Wolfgang Bächler, Ute Ellin, Wilhelm Grasshoff, Ruth Hellberg, Peter Kaiser, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta

DIE VERLORENE EHRE DER KATHARINA BLUM, a.k.a. THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM (1975) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Eberhard Junkersdorf SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta (novel by Heinrich Böll) CAM Jost Vacano MUS Hans Werner Henze ED Peter Przygodda CAST Angela Winkler, Mario Adorf, Jürgen Prochnow, Dieter Laser, Heinz Bennent, Hannelore Hoger, Margarethe von Trotta

DER FANGSCHUSS, a.k.a. COUP DE GRÂCE (1976) DIR – PROD Volker Schlöndorff SCR Margarethe von Trotta, Geneviève Dormann, Jutta Brückner CAM Igor Luther MUS Stanley Meyers ED Jane Sperr CAST Matthias Habich, Margarethe von Trotta, Rüdiger Kirschstein, Marc Eyraud, Bruno Thost, Henry Van Lyck

DEUTSCHLAND IM HERBST, a.k.a. GERMANY IN AUTUMN (1978) DIR Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alf Brustellin, Hans Peter Cloos, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Peter Schubert, Bernhard Sinkel PROD Theo Hinz, Eberhard Junkersdorf SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Alf Brustellin, Heinrich Böll, Hans Peter Cloos, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge, Maximiliane Mainka, Edgar Reitz, Katja Rupé, Peter Schubert, Bernhard Sinkel, Peter F. Steinbach CAM Michael Ballhaus, Jürgen Jürges, Bodo Kessler, Dietrich Lohman, Werner Lüring, Colin Mounier, Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein ED Heidi Genée, Mulle Goetz-Dickopp, Juliane Lorenz, Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus, Tanja Schmidbauer, Christine Warnck CAST Hannelore Hoger, Helmut Griem, Dieter Laser, Vadim Glowna, Angela Winkler, Katja Rupé, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta

DIE BLECHTROMMEL, a.k.a. THE TIN DRUM (1979) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Franz Seitz, Hans Pescher SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Claude Carrière, Franz Seitz, Günter Grass (novel by Günter Grass) CAM Igor Luther MUS Maurice Jarre ED Suzanne Baron CAST David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Katharina Thalbach, Daniel Olbrychski, Tina Engel, Berta Davis, Roland Teubner, Heinz Bennent, Andréa Ferréol, Charles Aznavour

DIE FÄLSCHUNG, a.k.a. CIRCLE OF DECEIT (1981) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Eberhard Junkersdorf SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Jean-Claude Carrière, Kai Hermann (novel by Nicolas Born) CAM Igor Luther MUS Maurice Jarre ED Suzanne Baron CAST Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jerzy Skolimowski, Jean Carmet, Gila von Weitershausen, Pater Martin Urtel, John Munro

RECE DO GÓRY, a.k.a. HANDS UP! (1981) DIR Jerzy Skolomowski SCR Jerzy Skolomowski, Andrzej Kostenko CAM Andrzej Kostenko, Witold Sobocinski ED Grazyna Jasinska-Wisniarowska CAST Jerzy Skolomowski, Joanna Szczerbic, Tadeusz Lomnicki, Alan Bates, Jane Asher, David Essex, Bruno Ganz, Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta, Fred Zinnemann

UN AMOUR DE SWANN, a.k.a. SWANN IN LOVE (1984) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Eberhard Junkersdorf SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Claude Carrière, Peter Brook, Marie-Hélène Estienne (novel by Marcel Proust) CAM Sven Nykvist MUS David Graham, Marcel Wengler, Gerd Kuhr, Hans Werner Henze ED Françoise Bonnot CAST Jeremy Irons, Ornella Muti, Alain Delon, Fanny Ardant, Marie-Christine Barrault, Anne Bennent, Nathalie Juet, Charlotte Kerr

THE HANDMAID’S TALE (1990) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Daniel Wilson SCR Harold Pinter (novel by Margaret Atwood) CAM Igor Luther MUS Ryûichi Sakamoto ED David Rey CAST Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn, Elizabeth McGovern, Victoria Tennant, Robert Duvall, Blanche Baker

HOMO FABER, a.k.a. VOYAGER (1991) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Eberhard Junkersdorf SCR Rudy Wurlitzer (novel by Max Frisch) CAM Giorgos Arvanitis, Pierre Lhomme MUS Stanley Myers ED Dagmar Hirtz CAST Sam Shepard, Julie Delpy, Barbara Sukowa, Dieter Kirchlechner, Traci Lind

UNE FEMME FRANÇAISE, a.k.a. A FRENCH WOMAN (1995) DIR Régis Wargnier PROD Yves Marmion ASSOC PROD Volker Schlöndorff SCR Régis Wargnier, Alain Le Henry CAM François Catonné MUS Patrick Doyle ED Geneviève Winding CAST Daniel Autheuil, Emmanuelle Béart, Gabriel Barylli, Jean-Claude Brialy, Geneviève Casile, Michel Etcheverry, Laurence Masliah

DER UNHOLD, a.k.a. THE OGRE (1996) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Gebhard Henke, Ingrid Windisch SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Claude Carrière (novel by Maurice Tournier) CAM Bruno de Keyzer MUS Michael Nyman ED Nicolas Gaster, Peter Przygodda CAST John Malkovich, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Gottfried John, Marianne Sägebrecht, Volker Spengler, Heino Ferch

DIE STILLE NACH DEM SCHLUSS, a.k.a. THE LEGEND OF RITA (2000) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Emmo Lempert, Arthur Hofer, Friedrich-Carl Wachs SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Wolfgang Kohlhaase CAM Andreas Höfer ED Peter Przygodda CAST Bibiana Beglau, Martin Wuttke, Nadja Uhl, Harald Schrott, Alexander Beyer, Jenny Schily, Mario Irrek

SCHROTT – DIE ATZENPOSSE (2000) DIR – SCR Axel Hildebrand PROD Henry Nielebock, Susan Nielebock CAM David Slama MUS Ralf Goldkind ED Susanne Peuscher CAST Uwe Oschenknecht, Boris Aljinovic, Luci Van Org, Inga Busch, Luise Helm, Volker Schlöndorff

TEN MINUTES OLDER: THE CELLO (2002) DIR Volker Schlöndorff, Bernardo Bertolucci, Claire Denis, Mike Figgis, Jean-Luc Godard, Jirí Menzel, Michael Radford, István Szabó PROD Louis Figgis, Nicolas McClintock, Nigel Thomas SCR Bernardo Bertolucci, Mike Figgis, Claire Denis, E. Max Frye, Jirí Menzel, Anne-Marie Miéville, Michael Radford, István Szabó, Augustinus CAM Ali Asad, Lucy Bristow, Tilman Büttner, Tony Chapuis, Fabio Cianchetti, Danny Cohen, Mike Figgis, Agnès Godard, Julien Hirsch, Andreas Höfer, Albert Kodagolian, Lajos Koltai, Léo MacDougall, Kristin McMahon, Lionel Perrin, Pascal Rabaud MUS Brice Leboucq, Jocelyn Pook ED Zsuzsu Csákány, Zdenek Patocka, Emmanuelle Pencalet, Peter Przygodda, Jacopo Quadri, Oli Weiss, Lucia Zuchetti CAST Daniel Craig, Charles Simon, Roland Gift, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Amit Rayani, Mark Long, Alexandra Staden, Dominic West, Jean-Luc Nancy, Anna Samardzija,

DER NEUNTE TAG, a.k.a. THE NINTH DAY (2004) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Jürgen Haase, Jakob Hausmann, Benigna von Keyserlingk SCR Eberhard Görner, Andreas Pflüger (memoir ‘Pfarrerblock 25487’ by Jean Bernard) CAM Tomas Erhart ED Peter R. Adam CAST Ulrich Matthes, August Diehl, Hilmar Thate, Bibiana Beglau, Germain Wagner, Jean-Paul Raths

STRAIK – DIE HELDIN VON DANZIG, a.k.a. STRIKE (2006) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Jürgen Haase SCR Andreas Pflüger, Maciej Karpinski (book by Sylke Rene Mayer) CAM Andreas Höfer MUS Jean-Michel Jarre ED Peter Przygodda, Wanda Zeman CAST Katharina Thalbach, Dominique Horwitz, Andrzej Chyra, Wojciech Solarz, Raphael Remstedt, Volker Schlöndorff

ULZHAN – DAS VERGESSENE LICHT (2007) DIR – PROD Volker Schlöndorff SCR Jean-Claude Carrière (original idea by Regis Ghezelbash, Jean-Marie Cambacérès) CAM Tom Fährmann MUS Bruno Coulais, Kuat Shildebayev ED Peter R. Adam, Beatrice Pettovich CAST Philippe Torreton, Ayanat Ksenbai, David Bennent, Maximilien Muller, Olga Landina, Serguey Urimtchev

LA MER À L’AUBE, a.k.a. CALM AT SEA (2011) DIR – SCR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Volker Schlöndorff, Bruno Petit CAM Lubomir Bakchev MUS Bruno Coulais ED Susanne Hartmann CAST Léo-Paul Salmain, Marc Barbé, Ulrich Matthes, Jean-Marc Roulot, Philippe Résimont, Charlie Nelson, Martin Loizillon, Sébastien Accart

DIPLOMATIE, a.k.a. DIPLOMACY (2014) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Marc de Bayser, Frank Le Wita SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Cyril Gely (play ‘Diplomatie’ by Cyril Gely) CAM Michel Amanthieu MUS Jörg Lemberg ED Virginie Bruant CAST André Dussollier, Niels Arestrup, Burghart Klaussner, Robert Stadlober, Charlie Nelson, Jean-Marc Roulot

RETURN TO MONTAUK (2016) DIR – SCR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Regina Ziegler SCR Volker Schlöndorff, Colm Tóbín CAM Jérôme Alméras ED Hervé Schneid CAST Stellan Skarsgård, Nina Hoss, Niels Arestrup, Robert Seeliger, Susanne Wolff, Isioma Laborde-Edozien, Mathias Sanders, Erik Hansen

TV MOVIES

BAAL (1970) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Volker Schlöndorff, Hellmut Haffner, Hans Prescher TELEPLAY Volker Schlöndorff (play by Bertold Brecht) CAM Dietrich Lohmann MUS Klaus Doldinger ED Peter Ettengruber CAST Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Sigi Graue, Margarethe von Trotta, Günther Neutze, Miriam Spoerri, Marian Seidowsky, Hanna Schygulla

DER PLÖTZLICHE REICHTUM DER ARMEN LEUTE VON KOMBACH, a.k.a. THE SUDDEN WEALTH OF THE POOR PEOPLE OF KOMBACH (1971) DIR – PROD Volker Schlöndorff TELEPLAY Volker Schlöndorff, Margarethe von Trotta CAM Franz Rath MUS Klaus Doldinger ED Claus von Boro CAST Georg Lehn, Reinhard Hauff, Karl-Josef Cramer, Wolfgang Bächler, Harald Müller, Margarethe von Trotta, Joe Hembus, Rainer Werner Fassbinder

ÜBERNACHTUNG IN TIROL, a.k.a. STAYOVER IN TIROL (1974) DIR – PROD Volker Schlöndorff TELEPLAY Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Hamm CAM Franz Rath MUS Stanley Myers ED Suzanne Baron CAST Margarethe von Trotta, Reinhard Hauff, Rita Scherrer, Ivry Gitlis, Heinrich Schweiger

DEATH OF A SALESMAN (1985) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Robert F. Colesberry TELEPLAY Arthur Miller (also play) CAM Michael Ballhaus MUS Alex North ED Mark Burns, David Ray CAST Dustin Hoffman, John Malkovich, Kate Reid, Stephen Lang, Charles Durning, Louis Zorich, David S. Chandler

A GATHERING OF OLD MEN (1987) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Gower Frost TELEPLAY Charles Fuller (novel by Ernest J. Gaines) CAM Edward Lachman MUS Ron Carter ED Nancy Baker, Craig McKay CAST Louis Gosset Jr., Holly Hunter, Richard Widmark, Joe Seneca, Will Patton, Woody Strode

ENIGMA – EINE UNEINGESTADENE LIEBE (2005) DIR Volker Schlöndorff PROD Eberhard Junkersdorf, Benigna von Keyserlingk, Bettina Reitz SCR Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt CAM Tomas Erhart MUS Benedikt Schiefer ED Heidi Handorf CAST Mario Adorf, Justus von Dohnányi