Presentation of Berlinale Camera to Herrmann Zschoche will take place Sunday, February 10, 2019 at 11.00 am at Kino International in the presence of Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick

Since 1986, the Berlinale Camera has been a way for the Berlin International Film Festival to honour and show gratitude towards individuals and institutions that have a special connection with the festival and have made an extraordinary contribution to the world of filmmaking.

The ceremony will be followed by a screening of Das Mädchen aus dem Fahrstuhl (The Girl In The Lift) at around 11.30 am. Photographers and television crews will be escorted out of the venue before the start of the screening.

Herrmann Zschoche, director and screenwriter (Germany)

Herrmann Zschoche had a fundamental impact on cinema in the GDR as a DEFA film director – both with his children's and youth films, and through his critical filmic portrayals of contemporary society.
He started his professional career as an assistant and camera operator with the GDR's state broadcaster. From 1954 to 1959 he studied film directing at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen “Konrad Wolf” (today known as Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF), before starting work as an assistant director at the DEFA film studios. He directed his first solo feature, Das Märchenschloß (The Fairy-Tale Castle), in 1961. The social critique in his 1965 drama Karla, for which Ulrich Plenzdorf wrote the screenplay, led to the film's being banned and not shown to the public until 1990.
In the 1970s, Herrmann Zschoche started focussing predominantly on youth films, such as the widely acclaimed Sieben Sommersprossen (Seven Freckles, 1978) and Insel der Schwäne (Swan Island, 1983). In 2002 he published his autobiography, „Sieben Sommersprossen und andere Erinnerungen“. After German reunification, Zschoche worked on a number of television productions, including Tatort, Kommissar Rex (Inspector Rex) and Drei Damen vom Grill.

Made by Düsseldorf-based goldsmith Georg Hornemann, the Berlinale Camera consists of 128 individual components and is modelled on a real film camera.