Director
© Thomas Longo
Philip Gröning
Philip Gröning, born in 1959, has been an established figure in European art cinema for over two decades. In 1986 he founded his own production company while still studying at the HFF in Munich.
Gröning first caused a sensation in 1992 with his film "The Terrorists!" about a planned assassination attempt on Helmut Kohl, whose television broadcast the then German Chancellor tried to prevent. The film won the Leopard in bronze at the Locarno Film Festival and was shown at the Sundance International Film Festival. In 2000 Gröning received international attention for his film "Love, Money, Love" which won the Leopard for Best Actress (Sabine Timoteo) in Locarno.
Philip Gröning had his greatest success to date, both nationally and internationally, in 2005 with his documentary "Into Great Silence", which became a worldwide audience success and won the Special Jury Prize in Sundance, the European Film Award, the Bavarian Film Award, the German Film Critics Award and was nominated for the German Film Award. In 2013 Gröning's "The Police Officer's Wife" celebrated great success: The drama was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival and received the German Film Critics Award for the best camera.
Since 2001, Philip Gröning, who has also taught numerous master classes and given guest lectures at Harvard and Yale, has headed the "Filmgestaltung 2" department at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg. In the current winter semester Philip Gröning has taken up the professorship "Staging of Fictional Narrative in Audiovisual Media" at the ifs International Film School Cologne.
In all his films Gröning is responsible for production, direction, script, editing and in some productions also for the camera. With "My Brother's Name is Robert and He Is an Idiot" he presented his first film at the Berlinale in 2018. Philip Gröning lives and works in Düsseldorf and Berlin.