Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg was born in Nossendorf in 1935. He is a filmmaker and one of the leading figures of the New German Cinema movement of the late 1960s. He grew up in Rostock, amongst other places, until he fled to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1953, where he studied literature and art history. In Munich, he completed his PhD on The Absurd in Dürrenmatt. His first feature film, Scarabea – How Much Earth Does a Man Need? (based on Tolstoy), was released in 1969. Syberberg’s films Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King (1972), Karl May (1974) and Hitler: A Film from Germany (1978) delve into German culture by operating at the intersection of history and myth. They are characterised by a strong dreamlike and allegorical quality, as well as a fragmentary structure, and bring together various artistic disciplines such as theatre, opera, literature, cabaret and puppet theatre. He himself describes his style as a cinematic link between Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre and Richard Wagner’s operatic aesthetics.

Syberberg was awarded the German Critics’ Prize in 1968 and 1982. In 1973, he shared the Adolf Grimme Prize and the German Film Prize in Gold with Walter Sedlmayr. He was also appointed a Commandeur of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2011.