Thomas Heise
Birth : 1955-08-22, Berlin, Germany
History
Thomas Heise was born in Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic, in 1955. After school he trained as a printer. After his military service in the East German armed forces he began to work as an assistant director at the DEFA - Studio for Feature Films in Potsdam Babelsberg in 1975. Between 1978 and 1983 Heise studied at the Academy of Film & Television in Potsdam-Babelsberg (HFF/B). His first film, the documentary Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film/Why a Film About These People - produced entirely with materials bought on the black market - was banned from public screening. Since 1983 he has worked as a free-lance writer and director in the areas of theatre, audio drama and documentary. Until the end of the GDR all his documentary efforts were however either blocked by what was – in official jargon – called 'operative means' or destroyed or confiscated.
Since the beginning of the 1990s Heise's documentaries have attracted national and international attention. Since 2007 he's been teaching as a Professor for Film and Media Art at Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe. Thomas Heise's earlier films dealt with social phenomena in the GDR and the country's bureaucratic apparatus. From the late 80s his focus has moved to the changes individuals, families and regional communities have had to undergo in the aftermath of the German reunification. The works of the filmmaker encompass a wide range of contemporary socially relevant topics such as privatisation, the re-organisation of the formerly industrial sphere, unemployment and rightwing radicalism to name but a few.
Director
Screenplay
Director Thomas Heise picks up the biographical pieces left by his family, and composes an epic picture of four generations of his family, of a country, of a century.
Director
Director Thomas Heise picks up the biographical pieces left by his family, and composes an epic picture of four generations of his family, of a country, of a century.
Writer
Documentary about a juvenile prison in Mexico City.
Director
Documentary about a juvenile prison in Mexico City.
Bäckert (voice)
DETECTION. Consideration of past, present and future of a small village in Germany. For over a century — wars and states went by — the military is the largest employer. The everyday life of the community is inextricably linked to the events on the nearby military training area. Diaries, daily instructions, petitions, letters and photos tell about daily life at different times.
Thanks
DETECTION. Consideration of past, present and future of a small village in Germany. For over a century — wars and states went by — the military is the largest employer. The everyday life of the community is inextricably linked to the events on the nearby military training area. Diaries, daily instructions, petitions, letters and photos tell about daily life at different times.
Writer
CONSEQUENCE tracks the tiring working day between Christmas Eve and New Year at a small German crematorium operating 24/7.
Director
CONSEQUENCE tracks the tiring working day between Christmas Eve and New Year at a small German crematorium operating 24/7.
Writer
documentary
Director
documentary
Producer
Solar System is a film about disappearance. It is a portrait of daily life in the indigenous community of the Kollas in Tinkunaku in the mountains of northern Argentina.
Writer
Solar System is a film about disappearance. It is a portrait of daily life in the indigenous community of the Kollas in Tinkunaku in the mountains of northern Argentina.
Director
Solar System is a film about disappearance. It is a portrait of daily life in the indigenous community of the Kollas in Tinkunaku in the mountains of northern Argentina.
Thanks
In Bettina Büttner’s exquisitely lucid documentary Kinder (Kids), childhood dysfunction, loneliness, and pent-up emotion run wild at an all-boys group home in southern Germany. The children interned here include ten-year-olds Marvin and Tommy. Marvin, fiddling with a mini plastic Lego sword, explains matter-of-factly to the camera, “This is a knife. You use it to cut stomachs open.” Dennis, who is even younger, is seen in a hysteric fit, mimicking some pornographic scene. Boys will be boys, but innocence is disproportionately spare here. Choosing not to dwell on the harsh specifics, Büttner reveals the disconcerting manner in which traumatic episodes can manifest themselves in the mundane — a game of Lego, Hide and Seek, or Truth or Dare. Filmed in lapidary black-and-white, Büttner’s fascinating film sheds light on childhood from the boys’ characteristically disadvantaged perspective — one not yet fully cognizant — leaving much ethically to ponder over.
Director
Director
Cinematography
"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)
Writer
"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)
Director
"Pictures from the late eighties in the GDR on up to the immediate present in the year 2008 in Germany. What has been left over besieges my mind. All these pictures keep reassembling themselves to make up something which they were originally not made for. They are still in motion. They are becoming history." (Thomas Heise)
Writer
Director
Cinematography
Documentary by Thomas Heise.
Writer
Documentary by Thomas Heise.
Director
Documentary by Thomas Heise.
Writer
Thomas Heise, noted documentary filmmaker from the former GDR, takes a trip to France to visit his brother Andreas. His brother lives there in a rather unusual situation.
Director
Thomas Heise, noted documentary filmmaker from the former GDR, takes a trip to France to visit his brother Andreas. His brother lives there in a rather unusual situation.
Cinematography
Documentary by Thomas Heise filmed in East Berlin in 1987/88.
Writer
Documentary by Thomas Heise filmed in East Berlin in 1987/88.
Director
Documentary by Thomas Heise filmed in East Berlin in 1987/88.
Cinematography
Documentary by Thomas Heise.
Writer
Documentary by Thomas Heise.
Director
Documentary by Thomas Heise.
Writer
Heise's first work produced specifically for television: a small film, the portrait of a pub on Rosenthaler Straße in Berlin Mitte, an homage to a kind of proletarian feeling of belonging together.
Director
Heise's first work produced specifically for television: a small film, the portrait of a pub on Rosenthaler Straße in Berlin Mitte, an homage to a kind of proletarian feeling of belonging together.
Writer
Director
Writer
The documentary relates how in the second half of the 20th century the agent Berthold Barluschke was first a henchman of the State Security Service of the GDR and then of the West German Federal Intelligence Service.
Director
The documentary relates how in the second half of the 20th century the agent Berthold Barluschke was first a henchman of the State Security Service of the GDR and then of the West German Federal Intelligence Service.
Writer
A group of young people in Halle-Neustadt moving aimlessly between the concrete blocks once built as a socialist model housing estate. Familiar certainties dissolved along with the GDR. Even though there were hardly any foreigners in Saxony-Anhalt, a dull aversion to everything that hadn’t been part of daily life until then began to spread. The general dissolution, perceived as a threat, is countered by apparently clear world views. When Thomas Heise won the “Documentary Film Prize 1992” at the Duisburger Filmwoche, the laudation ended with the assumption that the film would probably provoke disagreement. It turned out to be true.
Director
A group of young people in Halle-Neustadt moving aimlessly between the concrete blocks once built as a socialist model housing estate. Familiar certainties dissolved along with the GDR. Even though there were hardly any foreigners in Saxony-Anhalt, a dull aversion to everything that hadn’t been part of daily life until then began to spread. The general dissolution, perceived as a threat, is countered by apparently clear world views. When Thomas Heise won the “Documentary Film Prize 1992” at the Duisburger Filmwoche, the laudation ended with the assumption that the film would probably provoke disagreement. It turned out to be true.
Writer
Documentary film on the memories of four children from Eisenhüttenstadt who were all born at the same time the Berlin wall was built.
Director
Documentary film on the memories of four children from Eisenhüttenstadt who were all born at the same time the Berlin wall was built.
Writer
The lower level of Lichtenberg Station in Belin in early October 1989: the beginning of the end for the GDR. In the snack bar, the staff are catering for travellers of every kind while in the background the authorities maintain a flow of triumphal statements, but those months between August and October come to feel like sitting out the death throes. Careful observation of people and their work as the current of history suddenly becomes perceptible.
Director
The lower level of Lichtenberg Station in Belin in early October 1989: the beginning of the end for the GDR. In the snack bar, the staff are catering for travellers of every kind while in the background the authorities maintain a flow of triumphal statements, but those months between August and October come to feel like sitting out the death throes. Careful observation of people and their work as the current of history suddenly becomes perceptible.
Writer
Thomas Heise documents the everyday life of the "People's Police Force" in Berlin Mitte.
Director
Thomas Heise documents the everyday life of the "People's Police Force" in Berlin Mitte.
Sound
Thomas Heise's documentary portrays the meeting of officials and citizens in the district office of Berlin-Mitte in 1984. The movie uniquely displays how socialist officals and citizens interact.
Writer
Thomas Heise's documentary portrays the meeting of officials and citizens in the district office of Berlin-Mitte in 1984. The movie uniquely displays how socialist officals and citizens interact.
Director
Thomas Heise's documentary portrays the meeting of officials and citizens in the district office of Berlin-Mitte in 1984. The movie uniquely displays how socialist officals and citizens interact.
Writer
"This was my first student documentary. I shot it over the Easter vacation in 1980 on 16mm, black-and-white reversal film. Apart from two five-minute exercises, it was destined to be the only film I ever finished at the College of Film and Television of the German Democratic Republic (Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR, HFF) in East Germany’s Potsdam-Babelsberg. It was quickly banned from being shown publicly and it remained in storage until the end of 1989. The film tells the story of a mother and her sons having coffee and cake while they try to remember –in vain– when the first time was that they tangled with the police. The reason it was banned was the casual way the film portrayed those young men living their lives untouched by ideology, including taking their careers as petty criminals for granted, meaning the film’s author accepted their existence, as is, and simply wanted to explore it.”
Director
"This was my first student documentary. I shot it over the Easter vacation in 1980 on 16mm, black-and-white reversal film. Apart from two five-minute exercises, it was destined to be the only film I ever finished at the College of Film and Television of the German Democratic Republic (Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen der DDR, HFF) in East Germany’s Potsdam-Babelsberg. It was quickly banned from being shown publicly and it remained in storage until the end of 1989. The film tells the story of a mother and her sons having coffee and cake while they try to remember –in vain– when the first time was that they tangled with the police. The reason it was banned was the casual way the film portrayed those young men living their lives untouched by ideology, including taking their careers as petty criminals for granted, meaning the film’s author accepted their existence, as is, and simply wanted to explore it.”
Director
