Volker Schlöndorff

Director

March 31, 1939 (87 years)

Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany

Biography

Volker Schlöndorff is a Berlin-based German filmmaker. He won an Oscar as well as the Palme d'or at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival for The Tin Drum (1979), the film version of the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass. In 1991, he was the Head of the Jury at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival. Schlöndorff has adapted many literary works for his movies, including some critically well-received US productions, but he is also engaged in post-war German politics. He served as the c…

Filmography

6.9

The Tin Drum

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

6.1

The Handmaid's Tale

In a dystopian, polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.

5.6

Swann in Love

In Belle Époque Paris, a 19th-century Parisian aristocrat falls in love with a lower-class prostitute who seduces him but never loves him.

7.4

Last Year at Marienbad

At a weekend gathering, a man tells a woman that they had spent time there together a year prior. But, the woman has no recollection whatsoever and is convinced that he is simply fabricating the encounter. The more he speaks about their activities the previous year however, the more compelling he becomes. The question remains however – did they meet previously or not?

7.4

Le Doulos

Enigmatic gangster Silien may or may not be responsible for informing on Faugel, who was just released from prison and is already involved in what should be a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisting, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust?

6.1

Viva Maria!

1907 Central America: Maria II is the daughter of an Irish terrorist. After her father's death, she meets Maria I, a performer, and decides to stay with the circus, and on her debut as a singer, unintentionally invents the striptease and makes the circus famous. Their inadvertent encounter with a socialist revolutionary lands them leading a revolution against the dictator, the capitalists, and the Church.

7.0

Diplomacy

On the night of August 24, 1944, the fate of Paris rests with General von Choltitz, who plans to destroy the city on Hitler's orders. As the general prepares to detonate explosives throughout the capital, Swedish consul Raoul Nordling uses diplomacy in a desperate bid to convince him to defy the orders and save Paris.

7.6

The Fire Within

Depressed Alain Leroy leaves the clinic where he was detoxified. He meets friends, acquaintances and women, trying to find a reason to continue living.

5.1

A Very Private Affair

After achieving fame as a movie star, a woman finds her private life invaded by relentless fans, leading her mother’s ex-lover to intervene and offer protection.

6.2

Voyager

April 1957: Rational engineer Faber's plane crashes in Mexico, where he learns that he became a father in 1938. He takes a ship from NYC to France and meets cute, young Sabeth. Is it fate?

6.4

The Ogre

Frenchman Abel Tiffauges is a naive man who lives a simple life working as a mechanic. Falsely accused of being a child abuser, he is recruited as a soldier when World War II begins, but is captured soon and taken to the heart of Nazi Germany.

6.0

Palmetto

After being released from prison on a bum charge, Harry Barber is out for payback to regain his lost two years. He's hired by Mrs. Malroux to fake the kidnapping of her stepdaughter (the daughter of a dying millionaire). He discovers that he is being set up on multiple levels and will soon face a longer sentence if he doesn't prove the truth.

7.1

Léon Morin, Priest

Barny, although a Marxist, is intrigued by the mysteries of religion. In confession, she teases a priest, Léon Morin, but he is a young and intelligent man and ready to discuss anything.

6.9

Death of a Salesman

Willy Loman, an aging, failing salesman, struggles to accept reality and his failure to achieve the American Dream.

6.1

Circle of Deceit

To escape his crumbling marriage, German journalist Laschen travels to Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay. Together with his photographer, he meets some influential people and discovers the everyday face of the war.

7.0

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

After a chance encounter with a wanted man, a woman is harassed by the police and press until she takes violent action.

6.3

Germany in Autumn

Nine fictitious documentaries and films reflect the mood of late 1970s Germany, particularly the two-month period in 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped by the RAF (Red Army Faction). The kidnap had been made to orchestrate the release of the original leaders of the RAF, aka the Baader-Meinhof.

6.4

Coup de Grâce

A countess loves her brother's Prussian-officer friend in the 1919 Baltic area.

N/A

Visitation

A plot of land, a house by the lake, its changing inhabitants. This one plot of land reflects 70 years of German history from Weimar, the Nazis, the war, the Soviet occupation and reconstruction to the fall of the GDR.

5.6

Return to Montauk

Author Max Zorn, now in his early 60s, is on a promotional book tour in New York when he encounters the woman he could never forget. They spend a weekend together, seventeen years have passed. Can there be a future for their past?