Edgar Reitz

Reitz was born in Morbach, Hunsrück. His father Robert was a watchmaker and his business in Morbach was later taken over by Reitz's brother Guido. Reitz's interest in acting and producing plays began in his school years in Simmern, where he was encouraged by his German teacher Karl Windhäuser. After taking his Abitur, he studied German studies, journalism, art history and theatre studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München from 1952. His first experiences in film-making however were not theoretical; he worked as a camera, editing, and production assistant from 1953. His interests in the advancement of new developments in film went as far as he cooperated with Wolfgang Georgsdorf and his Osmodrama in 2016 which led to a complete scent synchronisation of his movie “home from home” which premiered as an allegedly well functioned cinema on 17 July 2016.

In 1963 along with Alexander Kluge he founded the Institut für Filmgestaltung (Institute for Film Design) which was affiliated to the Ulm School of Design, where he taught film directing and camera theory until the School of Design closed in 1968. As part of the group around Kluge, Reitz was a participant in the Oberhausen Manifesto which was announced at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival of 1962. With this manifesto young German filmmakers demanded nothing less than a new form of cinema: "Der alte Film ist tot. Wir glauben an den neuen." ("The old film is dead. We believe in the new film"). The manifesto is associated with the motto "Papas Kino ist tot" ("Papa's cinema is dead"). Subsequently, the concept of the auteur gained in popularity in Germany, and Reitz played a significant role in shaping this concept in the following years.

Lust for Love (Mahlzeiten) (1967) Cardillac (1970) Trip to Vienna (Die Reise nach Wien) (1973) In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death (In Gefahr und größter Not bringt der Mittelweg den Tod) (1974) (co-director: Alexander Kluge) Zero Hour (Stunde Null) (1977) "Grenzstation" in Germany in Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst) (1978) The Tailor from Ulm (Der Schneider von Ulm) (1978) Heimat (1984, TV series) Home from Home (Die andere Heimat) (2013) Leibniz- Chronicle of a Lost Painting (2025)

Eight Hundred Times Lonely (800 Mal Einsam – Ein Tag mit dem Filmemacher Edgar Reitz) (2019), film portrait of Edgar Reitz by the German filmmaker Anna Hepp Filmstunde 23 Subject: Filmmaking