He was one of the co-founders of the new German film, which focused on social criticism: Peter Lilienthal has now died at the age of 95. Among other things, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.
The director Peter Lilienthal is dead. According to his supervisor and his lawyer, he died in a nursing home in Munich. Lilienthal was 95 years old. He gained fame through award-winning films such as the trilogy “La Victoria” (1973), “All Quiet” (1976) and “Insurrection” (1980).
In the 1960s and 1970s, Lilienthal was one of the co-founders of the new German cinema, which focused on social and political criticism. With colleagues like Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, he opposed the “omnipotence of the producers and the heteronomy of the film industry”.
Stations in Berlin and Uruguay
Lilienthal was born in Berlin on November 27, 1929, the son of a stage designer. In 1939 the family emigrated to Montevideo in Uruguay. In 1954 he was in Berlin for three months and during this time made contact with the local Academy of Fine Arts. In 1956 he received a scholarship to study at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC), but after a short stay in Paris he switched to the Berlin Academy.
In 1959 Lilienthal got a job as a director and production assistant at Südwestfunk (SWR) in Baden-Baden. In 1964 Lilienthal moved back to West Berlin and worked from then on as a freelance director, mainly for the Sender Freies Berlin (SFB). He also gained notoriety through his adaptations of plays that were influenced by the theater of the absurd, such as “Picnic in the Field” or “Guernica”.
Also processed personal experiences
In his films, Lilienthal dealt, among other things, with the military dictatorships in Latin America. In the 1980s he brought personal memories to the fore. His film “David” is about the experiences of a Jewish youth who was able to save himself in 1943, and in “Dear Mr. Wonderful” he showed the everyday struggle of a Jewish entertainer and small business owner who is humiliated by speculators.
Lilienthal received the Golden Bear at the 1979 Berlinale for “David”. His story about a father and his mentally handicapped son “The Poet’s Silence” earned him a gold film in 1987. In 2020 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit.