The Munich director, producer and author Rainer Erler is dead. He died on Wednesday at the age of 90 in his adopted home of Perth, Australia, his family said.
Erler’s work includes more than 40 feature films, 14 novels, a good two dozen short stories and short stories as well as five stage works. With his artistic contributions he always provided material for discussion. The best-known works of the filmmaker, who grew up in Munich, include the socially critical comedy “Transmigration of Souls”, the political drama “Plutonium”, the science fiction films “The Blue Palace” and “Operation Ganymede” as well as the psychological thriller “Fleisch”, in which Erler addressed the topic of organ trafficking as early as 1979.
His last major film – “The Kaltenbach Papers” – was made in 1990 with a star cast starring Mario Adorf and Ulrich Tukur. When Erler spoke about cinema and television in his old age, his enthusiasm for the profession still came through. “It was hard for me to quit,” he said. It was his life, his elixir of life. But also an outlet to point out grievances and unhealthy developments. “I was always an author – and there were more than enough topics back then,” said Erler.
The “militant non-smoker”, as he described himself, spent his twilight years partly near Bad Tölz and partly in Australia with his daughter – until the start of the corona pandemic in 2020. He has not flown to Munich since then. said Erler shortly before his 90th birthday at the end of August. But he is “well looked after” in Australia.