Wolfgang Beckerthe German filmmaker whose comedy about reunification Goodbye, Lenin!was a worldwide success and made a star of the then unknown actor Daniel Bruhlpassed away. He was 70 years old.
Becker’s family announced his death on Friday, saying he died from a serious illness.
Becker was born in Hemer, in what was then West Germany, and studied film in Berlin. His student film, Butterfliesan adaptation of a short story by Ian McEwan, won the student Oscar.
The career of Wolfgang Becker and the success of Good Bye, Lenin!
In 1994, Becker co-founded the Berlin production company X Filme Creative Pool with his director friends. Tom Tykwer and Dani Levy and the producer Stefan Arndt. His first feature film for X Filme, Das Leben ist eine Baustelle (Life is All You Have) (1997) was his great commercial success. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won three German Film Awards. X Filme was a driving force in the revitalization of the German film scene in the late 90s and early 2000s with feature films such as Run, Lola, run (1998) by Tykwer and Go for Zucker! de Levy.
But the company’s biggest German success was Becker’s next film: Goodbye, Lenin!. The comedy-drama starred Katrin Sassa devout socialist with a weak heart who falls into a coma in October 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He sleeps during German reunification and when he wakes up, his son (Brühl) tries to hide the truth from him to avoid a fatal shock. He devises an elaborate plan, involving repackaging new Western foods in old East German jars and having a friend record fake news broadcasts, to convince his mother that nothing has changed.
The film was a resounding success in Germany and abroad, selling in more than 60 countries around the world and grossing around $80 million. It swept the German Film Awards, winning nine Lolas, and took six trophies at the European Film Awards, including best film. It won awards at the César Awards in France, the Goya Awards in Spain and the David di Donatello Awards in Italy and was nominated for the BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globe Award for Best International Film.
Brühl and Becker would reunite for their 2015 feature film I And Kaminskia satire on the art world adapted from the book by Daniel Kehlmann. Shortly before his death, Becker completed his last film, Der Held vom Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse (The Hero of Friedrichstrasse Station), a real-life drama about an East German signalman who helped more than 100 people flee the GDR through his station in East Berlin.
In addition to his work as a writer and director, Becker taught at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin, the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy, and the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.
X Filme founders Stefan Arndt, Dani Levy and Tom Tykwer paid tribute to Becker, calling him a “unique friend and companion” whose “love, strength and creativity will be infinitely missed”.
Source: Ambito
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