Freedom Festival 1999: Regina Ziegler
The Freedom Film Festival, in association with the Goethe-Institut Los
Angeles, is proud to present a tribute to Regina Ziegler, one of the
world’s most creative producers. We celebrate her ability to provide
leading film artists with the means to express their visions. She has
the guts to make films that must be made, films that perfectly capture a
particular moment in the life of her country, or a turning point in
history.
Ziegler got her start at the television station Sender Freies Berlin
(SFB), and after seven years worked her way up to production assistant
on original programs and plays for broadcast. In 1973 she took out a
personal loan and financed I Thought I Was Dead, the debut feature film
of Wolf Gremm, and Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion was born. It has
produced six to 12 features a year ever since.
The series of screenings in tribute to the company’s odyssey begins in
Germany at the Freedom Film Festival’s first "Berlin Selection" February
14-21.
In Los Angeles the series begins with Andrzej Wajda’s Korczak, and
continues with Krzysztof Zanussi’s Year Of The Quiet Sun. The
Goethe-Institut Los Angeles and the ACF co-host an all-day marathon of
Ziegler productions, featuring films that focus on the era of a divided
Germany. It closes with Fabian, Wolf Gremm’s period drama on the freedom
theme, and with one of her newest, Solo For Clarinet.
The role of the producer is still often unacknowledged, or
misunderstood. By now, a quarter century after the height of auteurism,
it is finally admitted that filmmaking is a collaborative art. When the
producer is Regina Ziegler, she provides much of the energy and
imagination behind a project, becoming the director’s strongest ally.
"Take a director and writer, and leave them alone, that’s how the best
films are made." This motto has led to some of her happiest
collaborations: with Helma Sanders-Brahms on Heinrich (1976); with
Jeanine Meerapfel on Malou (1980), recipient of the international
critics (FIPRESCI) prize at Cannes; with Wolf Gremm on 21 projects,
including Kamikaze 1989 (1982) starring his friend Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder The Last Year (1982); with
Ray Guerra on his adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Erendira
(1983); with Krzysztof Zanussi on his Venice Golden Lion winner Year of
the Quiet Sun (1984) and four other films; with Andrzej Wajda on Crime
And Punishment (1987); on his Best Foreign-Language Oscar entry Korczak
(1990) and The Crowned-Eagle Ring (1993); and with Susan Seidelman on
her Oscar-nominated The Dutch Master (1993).
In today’s economic world, you can’t have a viable national cinema, let
alone international attention and acclaim, without supportive
entrepreneurs. Though Regina’s tastes are European, her way of working
is closer to the American style of independent production: often, the
financial risk is entirely hers. She is one of the few producers who is
not totally dependent on subsidy financing.
The range of Ziegler’s more than 200 productions is remarkable. She was,
from the beginning, equally at home backing a production for cinema
release, a documentary or feature for television, a screen adaptation of
a stage success, or a TV series for young audiences.
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"I enjoy the
challenge of the small screen. Television for some is a moloch that
devours everything in sight. For me it’s an opportunity to reach out and
make contact with a viewing audience of millions. Where else is that
possible?"
Feature films she has produced have been invited to Cannes, Berlin,
Venice, Montreal, Montreux, Los Angeles, Chicago, Moscow, Sydney, New
Delhi. They have been awarded top prizes: the Gold Lion in Venice, the
Golden Rockies Award in Banff, the Prix de Presse at Montreux, and an
Academy Award Nomination. Ziegler has served on international juries at
Venice and Monte Carlo and on the Selection Committee at the Berlinale.
Among her services to the German filmmaking community has been the
revitalization of Germany’s national film awards program, the
Bundesfilmpreis. In 1998, in recognition of her 25-year career, she
received from Roman Herzog, President of the Federal Republic of
Germany, the Bundesverdienstkreuz Erster Klasse (German Cross for
Service of Merit, First Class), one of the country’s highest civilian
honors.
Regina Ziegler has a record of sticking by artists she believes in. She
generously chooses to support the work of some of the best filmmakers in
the world, giving Europeans in particular a distinctive voice
originating from the center of New Berlin.—Gary McVey |
