One of the most acclaimed and successful contemporary German film directors, the author of quite a diverse opus and a winner of many awards and honours, Andreas Dresen, is coming to Zagreb this autumn!

Dresen is a filmmaker of utterly realistic style which often reminds of documentary forms, and his seemingly banal everyday stories create an image of complex emotional and social situations, always with an accent on ‘ordinary’ people and their ‘small’ destinies, which earned him both critical acclaim and audience’s loyalty. Born in 1963 in Gera, Eastern Germany, in the early 1980s he began working for theatre and making short films. He studied film directing at the Babelsberg Konrad Wolf Film University in Potsdam. Since 1992 he has worked as a film, TV and stage writer and director.

At the 14^th Zagreb Film Festival, Dresen will be one of the jury members and the festival’s programme, in association with Goethe Institute, will be screening a retrospective of his works.

The retrospective begins on 16 November with Cloud 9, and all other films are scheduled during the upcoming month, every Wednesday at 6pm, at Goethe Institute.

Cloud 9 premiered in Cannes in 2008, winning a Coup de Coeur jury award in Un Certain Regard section. At European Film Awards, the film was nominated for best actress and best director, and at German Film Awards in 2009 it garnered the awards for best actress, best director and a bronze for best film.

The film Whisky with Vodka earned him the best director award at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2009. The film Stopped on Track earned him an award in Un Certain Regard in Cannes (2011) and raided the German Film Awards in 2012 in four categories: best film (gold), best director, best actor and best supporting actor. However, Summer in Berlin might be the first real German film about the united Germany, precisely because it does not even refer to the unification directly and never analyses it.