Berlin Hero

Wolfgang Becker was born in Hemer, Westphalia in 1954. He read German studies, history and American studies at Freie Universität Berlin from 1974 to 1979, and from 1981 he studied at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb). His graduate film Schmetterlinge in 1987 was also his first theatrical release. An adaptation of Ian McEwan’s short story “Butterflies”, it won the Student Academy Award in Hollywood and the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival. In 1991, he directed a critically acclaimed episode of the long-running German crime drama Tatort, which had a running time of 117 minutes, making it one of the longest episodes of all time; it was also one of the most-viewed shows in the series’ history, drawing 14.4 million viewers upon first broadcast. A year later, Child’s Play was released, a tragicomedy about childhood in a 1960s working-class neighbourhood that was awarded a Preis der deutschen Filmkritik.

In 1994, Becker was one of the co-founders of X Filme Creative Pool. His first movie for X Filme was Life is All You Get, a melancholy episodic movie about an anti-hero, portrayed by Jürgen Vogel, who drifts through post-Reunification Berlin, losing his job in a meat factory and ultimately falling in love with a street musician, played by Christiane Paul. The movie premiered in competition at the 1997 Berlinale film festival and won three German Film Awards.

Good Bye, Lenin! was also shown in competition at the Berlinale, and was the most successful German film of 2003, with six million viewers. It also enjoyed great popularity abroad, with London-based newspaper The Times calling it “the funniest film from Germany for a century”. Good Bye Lenin! was distributed in 60 countries and received countless prizes, including nine German Film Awards, six European Awards, a César Award, a Goya Award and a Golden Globe nomination. Becker’s 2015 movie Me and Kaminski, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Daniel Kehlmann, offered a satirical and humorous perspective on the art world in a road movie studded with awkward moments and dirty tricks that takes us across half of Europe. Becker completed shooting on his final movie Berlin Hero, based on the novel by Maxim Leo, shortly before his death on 12 December 2024.

Wolfgang Becker was a storyteller skilled at weaving social and political elements into personal histories. With great attention to detail, impressive staging, and subtle, warm-hearted humour, he greatly moved and unified cinema audiences. His impact on the German film business is indisputable. Alongside his work as a director and screenplay writer, he taught at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie (dffb), Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). Along with filmmakers Tom Tykwer, Dani Levy and Stefan Arndt, he was a co-founder of production company X Filme Creative Pool GmbH.

Selected filmography:

  2024   Berlin Hero
  2015   Me and Kaminski
  2009   Germany 09
  2004   Bem-vindo a São Paulo
  2003   Good Bye, Lenin!
  1997   Life Is All You Get
  1997   Sergiu Celibidache: The Triumphant Return
  1992   Child’s Play
  1991   Tatort: Blutwurstwalzer
  1988   Butterflies