Quarterly 4 · 2006 - German Cinema

Dagmar Hirtz (photo © Julia von Vietinghoff)
DIRECTOR’S PORTRAIT
Dagmar Hirtz was born in Aachen in 1943 and lives
today in Munich. After studying Music in Munich and an
apprenticeship in a processing laboratory, she entered
the film world as an assistant director and editor. She was
the editor responsible for films including Marianne und
Juliane (Die Bleierne Zeit, 1981) by Margarethe von
Trotta, The Pedestrian (Der Fussgaenger, 1973) by
Maximilian Schell, and Klaus Maria Brandauer’s Georg
Elser – Einer aus Deutschland (1989), as well as Peter
Sehr’s The Serbian Girl (Das serbische Maedchen, 1990)
and Volker Schloendorff ’s Homo Faber (1991). She has
received a total of three German Film Awards for her
work as an editor. Unerreichbare Naehe (1984)
was her debut as a cinema director, followed by
Moondance in 1995. Her first TV film, Die
Konkurrentin (1997), marked the start of Hirtz’ continual
and regular work for German television, mainly for
the two public broadcasting channels, ARD and ZDF. It
was followed by Schwiegermutter (2000), the children’s
film Kiss Me Frog (Kuess mich, Frosch,
2000), Bella Block – Bitterer Verdacht (2001),
Der Tod ist kein Beweis (2002), Bella Block –
Das Gegenteil von Liebe (2004), and Der
Mustervater – Allein unter Kindern (2004).
Sie ist meine Mutter (2006), based on the autobiography
Das endlose Jahr by Gisela Heidenreich, was
shown at the Munich Film Festival in July 2006. She has
just finished filming Ich wollte nicht toeten, which
will be broadcast by ZDF during the coming year.
Contact:
Agentur Brandner
Clemensstrasse 17 · 80803 Munich/Germany
phone +49-89-34 02 95 95 · fax +49-89-34 02 95 96
email: mail@agentur-brandner.de
www.agentur-brandner.de
THE QUESTION
OF IDENTITY
A portrait of Dagmar Hirtz
Asked why she turned to directing in 1983 after so many years of
prize-winning work as an editor, Dagmar Hirtz answered: “As an
editor collaborating with top-class directors, I learned a lot about staging
stories. I gradually developed the desire to apply the experience I
had gained while editing to my own independent creative work and to
realize a story’s content and form according to my ideas. And I found
the challenge of working together with actors, with a team of experts,
very stimulating. The job of the editor is a very lonely one.”
In the meantime, the director Hirtz, who lives in the central Munich
district of Schwabing, has staged eleven films for cinema and television,
from Unerreichbare Naehe to Ich wollte nicht toeten.
These films are not made to please; some of them handle very
disturbing subjects. She does not write their scripts, for she is no
author, as she herself admits, but she does consider it important to be
involved in the development of the story from the first version of the
script onwards. “I do not have what the Americans so aptly call – what
is it again? – a storytelling mind, but I do believe that I am a good
script-doctor. That has a lot to do with my experience editing films,
which is the best schooling in dramaturgy.”
german films quarterly director’s portrait
4 · 2006 8