Andres Veiel

Andres Veiel (born 16 October 1959 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a German film and theater director and author.

Biography

From 1982 to 1988, Andres Veiel studied Psychology at the Free University of Berlin and attended the director's class of Krzysztof Kieślowski at the Independent Berlin Artist Center Künstlerhaus Bethanien ^[1] from 1985 to 1989. As professors, the Künstlerhaus Bethanien gathered other renowned International and European directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Patrice Chéreau and Robert Wilson.

Andres Veiel's first documentary film Winternachtstraum (Winter Night's Dream)^[2] resulted from his theatrical work with a group of senior actresses and premiered 1992 at the Duisburger Filmwoche,^[3] an annual festival for German-speaking documentaries.^[4]

His next documentary about a Jewish-Palestinian theater group in Israel, Balagan, won in 1993 the Findling Award than was screened at the 1994 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale)^[5] and awarded with the Peace Film Award, the Camera Award and the German Film Award in silver.^[6] In 1996, Veiel shot his most personal film, Die Überlebenden (The survivors). It pictures the fate of three of Veiel's former schoolmates who committed suicide.^[7][8]

In 2001, a large audience took notice of Veiel's documentary Black Box BRD, in which he is bringing the biographies of Alfred Herrhausen, chairman of the Deutsche Bank and his suspected assassin and Red Army Fraction (RAF) member Wolfgang Grams face to face. Black Box BRD has won numerous awards,^[9] among others the European Film Award, the German Film Award and the Santa Barbara Film Festival Insight Award.^[10]

Veiel's next released work returned to the field of theater. Die Spielwütigen (Addicted to Acting) portrays four Berlin based acting students during the period of almost seven years and premiered at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival.^[11][12]

In 2005, the documentary theater play Der Kick (The Kick) about the 2002 murder of a teenager by three neo-Nazi teenagers in East Germany, which Veiel has written together with Gesine Schmidt, was first performed at theaters in Basel (Switzerland) and Berlin and was invited to the major German Theater Festival, the Berlin Theater Festival (Theatertreffen der Berliner Festspiele ^[13]) in May 2006.^[14] To date, the play has been performed by more than 60 theaters and has been translated into nine languages.^[15] Based on the performance of the play, Veiel created a documentary film which was first shown at the Berlinale 2006.^[16] Furthermore, German public radio stations collaborated with Veiel to produce an eponymic radio drama in 2005.^[17]

According to his technique of longstanding and profound research when dealing with a subject, Andres Veiel explores the topics of his films also as an author of non-fictional books. Black Box BRD. Alfred Herrhausen, the Deutsche Bank, the RAF and Wolfgang Grams gathers and extends by far the results of the research shown in the film.^[18] In 2007, Der Kick - ein Lehrstück über Gewalt (The Kick - a Lesson in Violence) is released ^[19] and is awarded with the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth's Literature Award) in 2008.^[20]

Wer, wenn nicht wir (If Not Us, Who?), Veiel's first feature film, was shot in 2010 and premiered in the competition of the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011,^[21] where it was awarded with the Alfred Bauer Prize.^[22] The film covers the history and genesis of the RAF and the relationship of the German author and publisher Bernward Vesper towards the RAF's founding members Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader. Main protagonists of the film were August Diehl, Lena Lauzemis and Alexander Fehling. It received various awards,^[23] including the 2011 German Film Award in Bronze ^[24] the Hessian Film Award for Best Feature Film and for Best Actress, as well as two awards (Best Film Silver Award, Best Male Lead) at the 2011 European Film Festival in Seville ^[25][26] and the Best International Film Award at the 10th Pune International Film Festival in 2012.^[27]

In 2012 Veiel interviewed current and former executive board members from various leading banks. Based on this research, he wrote the theater play Das Himbeerreich (The Raspberry Empire) looking behind the curtain of the financial system, showing personal motives and professional constraints of financial players. Himbeerreich premiered at the Staatstheater Stuttgart and at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in January 2013.^[28]

Veiel lectured and lectures at various film schools and universities, including the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin dffb ^[29] (German Film and Television Academy Berlin), the Free University of Berlin, the University of Zurich,^[30] the University of Michigan and is regularly being invited by the Goethe Institute to worldwide lectures, such as in Johannesburg, New Delhi, Calcutta, Osaka, Cairo and Tunis.^[31] He is member of the European Film Academy, the German Film Academy (Deutsche Filmakademie) and the Academy of Arts, Berlin.^[32]

Andres Veiel lives in Berlin, Germany.

Filmography

• 1992 Winternachtstraum (Winter Night's Dream), documentary, 82 minutes
• 1993 Balagan, documentary, 90 minutes
• 1996 Die Überlebenden (The Survivors), documentary, 90 minutes
• 2001 Black Box BRD, documentary, 101 minutes
• 2004 Die Spielwütigen (Addicted to Acting), documentary, 108 minutes
• 2006 Der Kick (The Kick), documentary, 82 minutes
• 2011 Wer wenn nicht wir (If Not Us, Who?), feature film, 124 minutes

Theater productions

• 2005 Der Kick (The Kick), Theater Basel and Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin
• 2013 Das Himbeerreich (The Raspberry Empire), Staatstheater Stuttgart and Deutsches Theater Berlin

Bibliography

By Veiel

• Andres Veiel (1991). Die letzte Probe. Ein Stück Revolution im Altenheim. Theaterstück in 3 Akten. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt/Main.
• Andres Veiel (1992). Hier drin kannst du alles haben. Ein Stück Knast. In: Theater, Theater. Aktuelle Stücke. Bd. 2. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt/Main.
• Andres Veiel (2002). Black Box BRD. Alfred Herrhausen, die Deutsche Bank, die RAF und Wolfgang Grams. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich, ISBN 978-3-421-05468-5.
• Andres Veiel (2007). Der Kick. Ein Lehrstück über Gewalt. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich, ISBN 978-3-421-04213-2.
• Gerd Koenen, Andres Veiel (2008). 1968. Bildspur eines Jahres. Fackelträger Verlag, Cologne, ISBN 978-3-7716-4359-1.
• Andres Veiel, Beatice Ottersbach (2008). Dokumentarfilm. Werkstattberichte. UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, Konstanz, ISBN 978-3-86764085-5.

About Veiel

• Nikolas Fischer (2009). Das Kino des Andres Veiel. Politische Filme im Balanceakt zwischen Dokument und Fiktion. Mensch und Buch Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-86664-527-1.

References

External links

• Andres Veiel at Filmportal
• Andres Veiel at the Internet Movie Database