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05/18/09
Film fellow Hark Bohm turns 70
A memorable face in front of and behind the camera
Hark Bohm was born on May 18, 1939, in Hamburg. After he had already begun to train as a lawyer, he met his later wife, Natalia Bowakow, outside a cinema – of all places. In 1968/69, he shared an apartment for a while with Volker Schlöndorff. They collaborated on a first script about the student revolt of the time.
For him, the “energy of the 1968-movement” means fundamental change and initiation. After his first short film HOW DID ROLAND S. DIE? (1970/71), he co-founded the Filmverlag der Autoren in 1971, where he was one of the legal pioneers and an essential pathfinder. His first movie was CHETAN, INDIAN BOY (1972), starring his son, Dschingis Bowakow, and his brother, Marquard Bohm (1941-2006), as the leads.
Using the same cast as before, his 1976-movie NORTH-SEA IS DEAD SEA was just as successful as its predecessor. This is what he says about himself in those days: “I was on a beat, mostly sailing against the wind. Art films were the trend at the Authors Film Publishing House. But I wasn’t interested in bringing film into the canon of other arts. The only thing that I was interested in was telling stories with film. (...) Looking back, my stories revolve around two subject complexes. One complex seems to arise from issues of the development of relationships between adults and children in the family, between adolescents and their first love. The second complex is based on my continuous interest in people who break the law and how others and the authorities react to it. My three films that I categorize as belonging to this complex are all based on a true story, THE BACHMEIER CASE (1984), THE LITTLE LAWYER (1987) and the two-part television production THE TRIALS OF VERA B. (2001).”
(http://www.kinowelt-international.de/regisseur.php?lang=de&bid=6_1&switch_language=en)
Since the mid-1970s, the actor-family Bohm have been essential ingredients to Fassbinder’s films – especially Hark Bohm with his characteristic appearances in the third phase of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s productions. Examples include THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1978), THE THIRD GENERATION (1979), BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), LILI MARLEEN (1980) and LOLA (1981).
His prestigious awards include the Filmband in Gold (1989) for YASEMIN and the Norddeutscher Filmpreis (2008).
Photo on left: © 2008 KINOWELT
Photo on right: Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hark Bohm during the shooting of LOLA, 1981 © RWFF
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