Heino Ferch
Encyclopedia
Heino Ferch is an award-winning German
film and television actor.
he performed the tumbling acrobatics acts on the stage of the City Theater in his home town of Bremerhaven
. During this time, he traveled through Europe as a federal member of the National League of Gymnastics.
1987 Ferch finished his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts "Mozarteum" in Salzburg, Austria
. In addition to his main subject drama, he also took courses in tap dancing, ballet and singing.
From 1987 until 2006 Ferch lived in the city of Berlin, a city whose division after World War II and reunification in 1989 is repeatedly reflected in his work as a movie actor („Menteurs“, „The Tunnel, Mord am Meer, The Airlift, The Wall - Berlin 1961 and upcoming in 2008 The Miracle of Berlin). After his wedding in 2005 he moved his main residence to Bavaria.
Until 1999 he was in a nine year relationship with actress Suzanne von Borsody
. In 2000 he met the daughter of the former under-secretary of state for cultural affairs for the city of Berlin physician Dr. Julia von Pufendorf. From this relationship he fathered a daughter (Louisa, b.2000).
In 2002, Heino Ferch met the National League Member of the military eventing squad Marie-Jeanette Steinle at the Bavarian Television Award celebration .
Three years later, in 2005, Ferch and Steinle married during the world's biggest sailing ship unification event Sail 2005 in the captain's lounge of the three-mast sailing ship Dar Młodzieży in Bremerhaven. The church wedding followed ten days later in Munster St. Maria Ascension in Dießen at Bavarian Ammersee. On November 10, 2008 Marie-Jeanette and Heino Ferch became parents of a daughter named Ava Vittoria Mercedès.
The happily married couple Heino and Marie-Jeanette Ferch are highly active in Polo sports - as players and in the promotion of the young. Both have DPV-Handicap of 0 (season 2010).
His first engagement after completing his studies Heino Ferch accepted at the Freie Volksbuehne Berlin. He was an ensemble-member from 1987-1990 - under the direction of Hans Neuenfels (et al.).
1990 - 1994 he was ensemble member at the Schiller Theatre, Berlin ( Die Raeuber; Mockinpott; Kasimir und Karoline; As you like it - director: Katharina Thalbach).
1992 he appeared at the Theater des Westens in Der Blaue Engel (screenplay after a novel by Heinrich Mann) under the direction of Peter Zadek.
He also appeared as guest actor at the Salzburg Festival (Un re in ascolto; Jedermann; Macbeth; Il ritorno d´Ulisse), at the Scala Milan and at the Burgtheater Vienna (Die Geisel).
Film
1987 he made his feature film debut with a brief appearance in Schloß Koenigswald (directed by Peter Schamoni). In 1989 he played his first leading part in Wedding (which is the name of a Berlin working class quarter), as amok runner Klaus Asmus (director: Heiko Schier).
1994 followed among many others the notable TV-mini production Deutschlandlied (directed by Tom Toelle) where he played the part of Hanno Schmidbauer, a young cabinet maker at the end of World War II.
1996 he appeared as Napola - Commander Obersturmbannfuehrer Raufeisen in The Ogre (quote by Oscar award winner, director Volker Schloendorff: "…the young sympathetic social climber Raufeisen, wonderfully portraied by Heino Ferch..“).
1997 was the year of his breakthrough as a film actor with his appearance as Jewish singer Roman Cycowski in The Harmonists (director: Josef Vilsmaier) a famous German a capella singing ensemble of the early 30s of the 20th century.
In 1997 he also played the leading part in Wintersleepers, an early masterwork by director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The Parfume)
In 1997 Ferch embodied not less than nine completely different movie characters. In seven of these he played the leading role or co-lead. (Comedian Harmonists, Wintersleepers, Life is All You Get, Play for your life, The Guardian Angel, Coma, Buddies, Lucie Aubrac, It happened at broad daylight)
In 1998 we saw him as gangster Ronnie in Tom Tykwer`s movie Run Lola Run
.
In 2001 the TV-mini series The Tunnel (director: Roland Suso Richter) focused on a dramatic escape of 32 persons from the GDR. It received seven film awards and was sold to more than 28 countries. Ferch received the Golden Camera award as best actor for his appearance as Harry Melchior, a fictional figure based on escaper Hasso Herschel.
In 2004 the film The Downfall (director: Oliver Hirschbiegel) was released. It received an Oscar nomination and was subsequently sold to 145 countries around the world. In this film Ferch played Hitler's architect and Minister for Armaments, Albert Speer
.
After the turn of the millennium the German film production company teamworx started a new TV-format: the so called event movies. Striking events form German history are combined with semi fictional story telling „making the past come alive“ (teamworx-claim) (e.g. The Tunnel, The Airlift, Dresden, Storm Tide).
Heino Ferch repeatedly spearheaded this format as featuring lead actor.
In 2005 eight million German viewers watched the TV-event The Airlift with Heino Ferch starring as American General Philipp Turner, a fictional character after General William H. Tunner, the organizator of the air-supply bridge in 1948/49 for the locked-in city of Berlin.
The film received the Golden Camera award as best TV-film of the year and was sold into 43 countries.
In 2007 the teamworx event-movie Hunt for Troy, an epic tale of a vision, of a relentless search for the treasury of Homer's Troy, became a success in 32 countries. Heino Ferch embodied the German business man and self made archeologist Heinrich Schliemann.
Parallel to these big productions Heino Ferch regularly appears as leading part in smaller productions – often high quality thrillers. Most of these received various film awards. (e.g. The lawyer and his guest, The account, Hell in the head, Killing at seaside, Hunt for Justice.)
Also character parts in European co-productions and Canada, as Lucie Aubrac (directed by Claude Berri), Julius Caesar (directed by Uli Edel), Napoléon (dir.: Yves Simoneau), The Seagull's Laughter (dir: Ágúst Guðmundson) Hunt for Justice- The Louise Arbour Story (dir.: Charles Binamé) The Trojan Horse – H2O Part II (dir: Charles Binamé) and D´Artagnan et les trois Mousquetaires (dir.: Prierre Aknine) helped to establish the German actor's visibility in an international setting.
Today (2008) Heino Ferch is one of the most popular and prolific actors in Germany.
Bambi Awards
Bavarian Film Awards
Bavarian TV Awards
Golden Camera
Jupiter Award
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
film and television actor.
Life
The son of a cargo vessel skipper, he was on stage for the first time in his life at the age of 15, while he was still attending grammar school. As a member of the stage ballet company in the musical Can-CanCan-Can
The Can-can is a dance. It may also refer to:* Popularly, the Galop Infernal movement of Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, commonly associated with the dance* Can Can , a 2007 fragrance by Paris Hilton...
he performed the tumbling acrobatics acts on the stage of the City Theater in his home town of Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...
. During this time, he traveled through Europe as a federal member of the National League of Gymnastics.
1987 Ferch finished his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts "Mozarteum" in Salzburg, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. In addition to his main subject drama, he also took courses in tap dancing, ballet and singing.
From 1987 until 2006 Ferch lived in the city of Berlin, a city whose division after World War II and reunification in 1989 is repeatedly reflected in his work as a movie actor („Menteurs“, „The Tunnel, Mord am Meer, The Airlift, The Wall - Berlin 1961 and upcoming in 2008 The Miracle of Berlin). After his wedding in 2005 he moved his main residence to Bavaria.
Until 1999 he was in a nine year relationship with actress Suzanne von Borsody
Suzanne von Borsody
Suzanne von Borsody is a German actress. She is the daughter of director Rosemarie Fendel and actor Hans von Borsody .She played Frau Jäger in the 1998 film Run Lola Run.- External links :*...
. In 2000 he met the daughter of the former under-secretary of state for cultural affairs for the city of Berlin physician Dr. Julia von Pufendorf. From this relationship he fathered a daughter (Louisa, b.2000).
In 2002, Heino Ferch met the National League Member of the military eventing squad Marie-Jeanette Steinle at the Bavarian Television Award celebration .
Three years later, in 2005, Ferch and Steinle married during the world's biggest sailing ship unification event Sail 2005 in the captain's lounge of the three-mast sailing ship Dar Młodzieży in Bremerhaven. The church wedding followed ten days later in Munster St. Maria Ascension in Dießen at Bavarian Ammersee. On November 10, 2008 Marie-Jeanette and Heino Ferch became parents of a daughter named Ava Vittoria Mercedès.
The happily married couple Heino and Marie-Jeanette Ferch are highly active in Polo sports - as players and in the promotion of the young. Both have DPV-Handicap of 0 (season 2010).
Work
TheatreHis first engagement after completing his studies Heino Ferch accepted at the Freie Volksbuehne Berlin. He was an ensemble-member from 1987-1990 - under the direction of Hans Neuenfels (et al.).
1990 - 1994 he was ensemble member at the Schiller Theatre, Berlin ( Die Raeuber; Mockinpott; Kasimir und Karoline; As you like it - director: Katharina Thalbach).
1992 he appeared at the Theater des Westens in Der Blaue Engel (screenplay after a novel by Heinrich Mann) under the direction of Peter Zadek.
He also appeared as guest actor at the Salzburg Festival (Un re in ascolto; Jedermann; Macbeth; Il ritorno d´Ulisse), at the Scala Milan and at the Burgtheater Vienna (Die Geisel).
Film
1987 he made his feature film debut with a brief appearance in Schloß Koenigswald (directed by Peter Schamoni). In 1989 he played his first leading part in Wedding (which is the name of a Berlin working class quarter), as amok runner Klaus Asmus (director: Heiko Schier).
1994 followed among many others the notable TV-mini production Deutschlandlied (directed by Tom Toelle) where he played the part of Hanno Schmidbauer, a young cabinet maker at the end of World War II.
1996 he appeared as Napola - Commander Obersturmbannfuehrer Raufeisen in The Ogre (quote by Oscar award winner, director Volker Schloendorff: "…the young sympathetic social climber Raufeisen, wonderfully portraied by Heino Ferch..“).
1997 was the year of his breakthrough as a film actor with his appearance as Jewish singer Roman Cycowski in The Harmonists (director: Josef Vilsmaier) a famous German a capella singing ensemble of the early 30s of the 20th century.
In 1997 he also played the leading part in Wintersleepers, an early masterwork by director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The Parfume)
In 1997 Ferch embodied not less than nine completely different movie characters. In seven of these he played the leading role or co-lead. (Comedian Harmonists, Wintersleepers, Life is All You Get, Play for your life, The Guardian Angel, Coma, Buddies, Lucie Aubrac, It happened at broad daylight)
In 1998 we saw him as gangster Ronnie in Tom Tykwer`s movie Run Lola Run
Run Lola Run
Run Lola Run is a 1998 German crime thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 German marks in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life...
.
In 2001 the TV-mini series The Tunnel (director: Roland Suso Richter) focused on a dramatic escape of 32 persons from the GDR. It received seven film awards and was sold to more than 28 countries. Ferch received the Golden Camera award as best actor for his appearance as Harry Melchior, a fictional figure based on escaper Hasso Herschel.
In 2004 the film The Downfall (director: Oliver Hirschbiegel) was released. It received an Oscar nomination and was subsequently sold to 145 countries around the world. In this film Ferch played Hitler's architect and Minister for Armaments, Albert Speer
Albert Speer
Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
.
After the turn of the millennium the German film production company teamworx started a new TV-format: the so called event movies. Striking events form German history are combined with semi fictional story telling „making the past come alive“ (teamworx-claim) (e.g. The Tunnel, The Airlift, Dresden, Storm Tide).
Heino Ferch repeatedly spearheaded this format as featuring lead actor.
In 2005 eight million German viewers watched the TV-event The Airlift with Heino Ferch starring as American General Philipp Turner, a fictional character after General William H. Tunner, the organizator of the air-supply bridge in 1948/49 for the locked-in city of Berlin.
The film received the Golden Camera award as best TV-film of the year and was sold into 43 countries.
Parallel to these big productions Heino Ferch regularly appears as leading part in smaller productions – often high quality thrillers. Most of these received various film awards. (e.g. The lawyer and his guest, The account, Hell in the head, Killing at seaside, Hunt for Justice.)
Also character parts in European co-productions and Canada, as Lucie Aubrac (directed by Claude Berri), Julius Caesar (directed by Uli Edel), Napoléon (dir.: Yves Simoneau), The Seagull's Laughter (dir: Ágúst Guðmundson) Hunt for Justice- The Louise Arbour Story (dir.: Charles Binamé) The Trojan Horse – H2O Part II (dir: Charles Binamé) and D´Artagnan et les trois Mousquetaires (dir.: Prierre Aknine) helped to establish the German actor's visibility in an international setting.
Today (2008) Heino Ferch is one of the most popular and prolific actors in Germany.
Selected filmography
- 2008 - Der Baader Meinhof KomplexDer Baader Meinhof KomplexThe Baader Meinhof Complex is a 2008 German film by Uli Edel. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek. The film is based on the 1985 German best selling non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust...
- 2008 - The Trojan HorseThe Trojan Horse (miniseries)The Trojan Horse is a Canadian political drama two-part miniseries that first aired on CBC Television on 30 March 2008. It is a sequel to the 2004 miniseries, H2O. It starred Paul Gross, Greta Scacchi and Tom Skerritt...
(TV, CAN, US) - 2007 - Messy Christmas
- 2007 - Hunt for Troy (TV)
- 2006 - The Wall - Berlin ´61 (TV)
- 2006 - Ghetto
- 2005 - The Airlift (TV)
- 2005 - Hunt for Justice - The Louise Arbour Story (TV, CAN)
- 2005 - D'Artagnan et les trois mousquetaires (TV, FR)
- 2004 - DownfallDownfall (film)Downfall is a 2004 German/Italian/Austrian epic war film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, depicting the final ten days of Adolf Hitler's life in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945....
- 2003 - A Light in Dark Places(TV)
- 2002 - Extreme OpsExtreme OpsExtreme Ops is a 2002 action thriller film directed by Christian Duguay, written by Michael Zaidan, Timothy Scott Bogart, and Mark Mullin, and starring Devon Sawa, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Rupert Graves, and Rufus Sewell.-Premise:...
- 2002 - NapoléonNapoléon (miniseries)Napoleon is a historical miniseries which explored the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 2002, it was the most expensive television miniseries in Europe, costing the equivalent of $US46,330,000 to produce. The miniseries covered Napoleon's military successes and failures, including the Battles of...
(TV, FR) - 2001 - The Seagull's LaughterThe Seagull's LaughterThe Seagull's Laughter is a 2001 Icelandic film directed by Ágúst Guðmundsson. It was Iceland's submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.-See also:*Cinema of Iceland...
- 2002 - Julius CaesarJulius Caesar (TV miniseries)Julius Caesar is a 2002 mini-series about the life of Julius Caesar. It was directed by Uli Edel, and written by Peter Pruce and Craig Warner. It is a dramatization of the life of Julius Caesar through 82 BC to his death in 44 BC...
(TV, USA, IT, FR) - 2001 - Der TunnelDer TunnelDer Tunnel is a made-for-television German film released in 2001 and loosely based on true events in Berlin followingthe closing of the East German border in August 1961 and the subsequent construction of the Berlin Wall....
- 1999 - The Green Desert
- 1999 - Straight Shooter
- 1998 - Four for VeniceFour for Venice-Plot:The film involves two married couples: Nick and Charlotte and Luis and Eva.Nick and Charlotte are more than busy earning money, there is no time for love or sex - only Tuesdays. Soon, Charlotte finds a lover, Luis, an unsuccessful artist...
- 1998 - Run lola runRun Lola RunRun Lola Run is a 1998 German crime thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 German marks in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life...
- 1997 - The Harmonists
- 1997 - Life Is All You Get
- 1997 - WintersleepersWintersleepersWintersleepers is a 1997 German film directed by Tom Tykwer. It was premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival.-Plot:The film is set in the deeply snowy alpine winter resort of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria; the story begins shortly after Christmas Day, with five people returning, not all of...
Awards
Adolfe Grimme Award- Adolf Grimme Award for series/miniseries (A Light in Dark Places / Das Wunder von Lengede)
Bambi Awards
- Bambi Award for national film (Downfall)
- Bambi Award for TV event of the year (A Light in Dark Places / Das Wunder von Lengede)
Bavarian Film Awards
Bayerischer Filmpreis
The Bavarian Film Awards have been awarded annually since 1979 by the State Government of Bavaria in Germany for “exceptional achievement in German filmmaking.” Along with the German Film Awards, these are the most highly regarded awards for filmmaking achievement in Germany.The Bavarian Film...
- 1997 Special Award (The Harmonists / Comedian Harmonists)http://www.bayern.de/Anlage19170/PreistraegerdesBayerischenFilmpreises-Pierrot.pdf
Bavarian TV Awards
- Bavarian TV Award (Der Tunnel)
Golden Camera
- Golden Camera (Der Tunnel)
Jupiter Award
- Jupiter Award (The Wall - Berlin ´61)
External links
- Heino Ferch Filmography on www.filmszenen.net
- Scene photos of Heino Ferch in different film roles from kino.de