Ulrich Mühe
Birth : 1953-06-20, Grimma, Germany
Death : 2007-07-22
History
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe (20 June 1953 – 22 July 2007) was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann (Captain) Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others, 2006), for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film awards, the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Awards); and the Best Actor Award at the 2006 European Film Awards.
Curiously, events in Mühe's life were mirrored by the plot of the film, as he allegedly discovered in a Stasi file compiled on him that he had been under surveillance by his second wife, Jenny Gröllmann. Gröllmann denied this, and after an acrimonious and highly-publicized court case she succeeded in obtaining an injunction to prevent Mühe from repeating the allegation in a book.
After leaving school, Mühe was employed as a construction worker and a border guard at the Berlin Wall. He then turned to acting, and from the late 1970s into the 1980s appeared in numerous plays, becoming a star of the Deutsches Theater in East Berlin. He was active in politics and denounced Communist rule in East Germany in a memorable address at the Alexanderplatz demonstration on 4 November 1989 shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. After German reunification he continued to appear in a large number of films, television programmes and theatre productions. In Germany he was particularly known for playing the lead role of Dr. Robert Kolmaar in the long-running forensic crime series Der letzte Zeuge (The Last Witness, 1998–2007).
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Devil (archive footage)
Based on archive holdings from nine decades, director Hannes Rossacher has created a complete Jedermann performance and thus a unique cultural-historical puzzle from Alexander Moissi to Nicholas Ofczarek. The success story of the phenomenon "Everyman" is told in an unprecedented way.
Robert
Claire and Robert spend most of their time in a house they own in the beautiful and remote countryside in Italy. Their life seems to be perfect. But when Claire's sister gets murdered in the very same house, the traumatic event shakes up their relationship. Disappointment, fear and resentment they swept under the rug for years, resurface. Revealing the dark side of a blissful love - a dream that turns into a nightmare. It is the story of two people trapped in a dark secret.
Prof. Adolf Israel Grünbaum
Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...
Der Knopfgiesser
Young Peer Gynt returns home once again after unsuccessfully looking for work. His mother already goes to meet him and he describes his alleged adventures to her. In his imagination, he sees himself as a king and escapes reality with his stories. His mother would have liked him to marry Ingrid, with whose dowry they would be well provided for, but Ingrid is promised to Mats and will marry him the very next day. While Peer once again escapes into his world of thoughts while lying in the grass, he is laughed at by the others of the village. They warn him to come to Ingrid's wedding feast, where the whole village is celebrating. But he does not care and there he meets Solvejg, whom he likes very much, but she initially turns away from him. So he kidnaps the bride Ingrid, incurring the wrath of the groom and the rest of the village youth.
Nicolas Cramer
There's a secret in the St. Ambrose Chapel...
Gerd Wiesler
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
Knövel
Based on the novel Hohaj by Elisabeth Rynell, it depicts the devastation felt by Elizabeth, a woman who had lost her husband in a car accident and wants to leave her three young children to join him in death by wandering out into the snowy deserts of Lapland. As she wanders through the snow, Elizabeth discovers the story of Aron and Ina, a couple who overcame dark secrets and over-controlling family members to be with each other.
Documentary by Thomas Heise filmed in East Berlin in 1987/88.
Jochen Hensel
Director
Gerd Wegener
Art expert Katharina Diezmann is out of the blue, when one day the little Brazilian Marcia is standing at her door. Years ago Katharina had taken over a sponsorship for the eleven-year-old, but never expected that she would ever meet her. The little girl is in Berlin with her samba group over Christmas and has only one wish: finally to see real snow!
Günter Gaus
Claudius Müller
A great mosaic, a labyrinth of scenes, dialogue splinters, interviews, portraits of people surrounding Hamlet and wanting to be part of his story.
Eugen Ott
A foreign spy using the Sorge alias is assigned to Tokyo the capital of Japan just prior to the outbreak of World War II and in the midst of the Japanese imperial ambitions in Eastern Asia. The spy becomes acquainted with a sympathetic communist who like he is attached to the ideals of freedom and rule of the masses. Sorge is able to feed the Soviet Union useful information regarding the Axis allies and their movements in Asia and beyond.
Goebbels bzw. Geduldig
SS-Arzt
Kurt Gerstein—a member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS—is horrified by what he sees in the death camps. he is then shocked to learn that the process he used to purify water for his troops by using Zyklon-B, is now used to kill people in gas chambers.
Henri
Manfred Reimann
Markus Paufler
After his daughter died of cancer, former French foreign legionnaire "Straight Shooter" alias Volker Bretz threatens those who financed, built, favoured and now work the nuclear power plant Atar II to kill one of them each day until the plant is shut down. His former drill sergeant, Frank Hector, who now owns several night clubs and brothels, is the only one who might be able to stop the maniac killing specialist. Frank is flown in instantly, but soon has to find out that his former comrade's actions might be a result from an event long ago.
Dr. Leon Stein
Rudolph
Feuerreiter is an elegant period drama that begins in Frankfurt in 1796. Through his friend, Baron von Sinclair, romantic and rebellious poet Friedrich Hölderlin secures the position of a private tutor in the home of a banker named Gontard. He is soon torn between his passion for poetry and his love for Susette, the lady of the house. To top it all off, Baron von Sinclair is in love with him. Hölderlin's most beautiful poems are written during this trying time. However, he becomes a total recluse when he loses Susette. The film examines the effects of conflicting demands, both emotional and sensual, that may inspire art. Feuerreiter was screened as part of the New German Films at the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999.
Eschbach
Thomas Krömer follows the traces of a brutal murder in werewolf-manner out of personal interest. After investigating for some time, the traces all point to one person: himself. Now, he has to find out whether he surprisingly turns into a blood-seeking werewolf at full moon without knowing it or if there is an other solution to the murders. Police are getting pretty suspicious after Thomas' own grandmother has been brutally slaughtered in her little fairy-tale-fashioned house in the woods, and it will soon be time for a full moon...
Georg
Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.
K
Michael Haneke's adaptation of Franz Kafka's unfinished novel Das Schloss. K arrives in a remote village a stranger. In attempting to establish himself there, he enters the nightmarish world of the castle bureaucracy.
Kommissar
Ramona lives her lonely life in Berlin working in a lipstick factory. One day she accidentally runs into Andrzei, a Polish mechanic illegally selling cigarettes in Germany during the weekend. One thing leads to another, and soon she finds herself pregnant. Then her life starts falling apart, when Andrzei tells her he already has a wife back in Poland and her baby dies shortly after its premature birth.
Christian Plache
A gay man's return to his family in East Germany begins a series of tragic events.
Hugo Wallner
Dr. Jochen Schuster
Pfarrer Ohlbaum
Sturm
Dr. Herbert Pieritz
Sergej
Dr. Heinrich Gützkow
Flat-dwelling urban family win a pig in a raffle, and decide to keep it. They lose their flat (no pets allowed) but eventually Rudi the pig makes good.
Karl 'Kalle' Kaminski
In this German political drama, an ex-Stasi agent encounters an old friend whom he may have betrayed after his friend tried to escape East Germany. The former East German agent is Otto Skrodt who after many years is about to be promoted in the highest government ranks. He is anxious to maintain a squeaky clean image. His daughter is Isabelle. The young and friendly Kalle returns after spending many years in jail for his escape attempts. He doesn't know exactly who blew the whistle, but his friend Skrodt is definitely under suspicion. Kalle returns to ostensibly renew the friendship and to see Isabelle whom he loves. The duplicitous friendship between the two men becomes the main focus of the story which features interesting plot twists at the end.
Gerber - Kommandant
Near the end of WWII a lone U-Boat is sent from Germany to Japan carrying plutonium needed for a Japanese A-Bomb. During the long journey, news arrives on the radio that Hitler killed himself and Germany has surrendered. This causes a rift in the crew, the Nazi Party members wanting to continue to Japan since they are still at war, while the others just want to surrender or return home.
Stefan Phillis
Vater
A 14-year-old video enthusiast obsessed with violent films decides to make one of his own and show it to his parents, with tragic results.
Dr. Wieland
Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value... and Knobel is quickly in over his head. As the pressure builds and Knobel is forced to deliver more and more volumes of the fake diaries, he finds himself acting increasingly like the man whose life he is rewriting. The film is a romping and hilarious satire, poking fun not only at the events and characters involved in the hoax (who are only thinly disguised in the film), but at the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past.
Lehrer
A teacher at a German high-school in the nineteen thirties has issues with his students who seem to be getting less human and more convinced of Nazi ideals as time goes on.
Johannes Friedemann
Flimmer
Sieghart
Ena lives on a remote farmstead. One stormy night, hydraulic engineer Sieghart appears at her door after his car gets stuck in the mud. Although Ena falls in love with Sieghart, she decides to marry her fiancé Mathias. She is incapabale of hiding her true feelings from her groom-to-be, and on the night before the wedding, Mathias forces the pair to join him for a carriage ride – with deadly results.
Patriarch
Theodor Lohse
Ulrich Mühe plays a German businessman who was born completely without scruples. This makes him an eminently suitable candidate for success in the chaotic years after World War I. The shameless man's story is contrasted with that of his polar opposite, a Jewish anarchist.
Raoul Fürstenau
Oberleutnant Stein
Dr. Grote
Rudolf Schwarz
Siegfried Strauch
Friedrich Hölderlin
This tragic love story relates ten decisive years in the life of the great Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin, played by a young Ulrich Mühe.
Revolutionär
Based on a switched identity, in circumstances that are found in real life as well as fiction, this drama tells the story of two soldiers fighting together in World War I. Karl (Joachim Latsch) and Richard (Hans-Use Bauer) become close friends while serving time in a German POW camp. One day Karl manages a successful escape and goes to Richard's home where he seeks refuge posing as Richard. But Richard's wife Anna (Kathrin Waligura) has never given up hope that her husband is still alive -- a possibility that would shatter Karl's proposed new life. In fact, Richard did not die in the POW camp. This film shared the Grand Prix award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival.
Sohn Leutnant Leo
Junger Mann
1945. Peace still bears the traces of war everywhere. There meet the animated girl Xenia and the former boxer Henry. Being together gives them a sense of opportunity. She wants to break away from the semi-world milieu, he try a comeback in the boxing ring.
Osvald
Retzlow
Based on a story by Anna Seghers.
