Lisy Christl

Biography

Born in Munich on August 29, 1964, costume designer Lisy Christl began her professional career with an apprenticeship as a tailor and a subsequent apprenticeship at the Münchner Kammerspiele. She also attended the master school for fashion in Munich. According to her, she wavered between costume design and fashion design for a long time, but then decided on the former after seeing "Le dernier Métro" ("The Last Metro") by François Truffaut again in 1986 or 1987 and thinking: "How could I ever be unsure? Of course, that's my job, my profession. I can't do anything else and I don't want anything else. This is my dream!"

She got her first job in the film industry by chance when a make-up artist friend told her that Joseph Vilsmaier was looking for a wardrobe supervisor for his film "Stalingrad" (1992). This first collaboration with the director was followed by others on "Schlafes Bruder" ("Brother of Sleep", 1995), for which she designed costumes as a costume design assistant, and a year later on "Und keiner weint mir nach" ("And Nobody Weeps For Me"), where she was already primarily responsible for the costume design. Her next projects were directed by the Austrian director Michael Haneke. After initially working on Haneke's TV film "Das Schloß" ("The Castle") based on Franz Kafka and the intense psychological thriller "Funny Games", over the years she was also responsible for the costume design for two more of his films, "Wolfzeit" ("Time of the Wolf", 2003) and "Caché" ("Hidden", 2005).

In between, she worked on productions as diverse as the children's film "Das Sams" ("The Slurb") and contemporary German films such as Christian Petzold's "Wolfsburg" (2003) and the tragicomedy "Erbsen auf halb 6" ("Peas at 5:30", 2004). Christl: "A contemporary film is often more difficult to 'dress up' than a historical one. You have to keep reminding yourself that personal tastes have much more influence on a contemporary film because it's about empathizing with different characters and their stories."

Christl was nominated for the German Film Award in 2006 for a historical costume design, namely in Florian Gallenberger's film "Schatten der Zeit" ("Shadows of Time"), which is set in India in the 1940s. She received the coveted award three years later for the drama "John Rabe", also directed by Gallenberger, which is set in China in 1937 and is based on a true story.

In the following years, Christl worked for Alain Gsponer on "Lila, Lila", Matti Geschonneck on "Boxhagener Platz" and Hans-Christian Schmid on "Was bleibt" ("Home for the Weekend", 2012), among others. She received an Oscar nomination and her second German Film Award in 2012 for her elaborate costumes in Roland Emmerich's international production "Anonymous", set in the Elizabethan era. The collaboration between the two came about on the recommendation of Florian Gallenberger and was to continue with Emmerich's disaster films "White House Down" (2013) and "Independence Day: Resurgence" (2016). The action thriller "Point Break" (2015, directed by Ericson Core) and Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life" (2019) are among her other work on international co-productions in these years. She made a foray into the international series business in 2018/19 when she designed the costumes for the second season of the American sci-fi thriller series "Counterpart" starring J.K. Simmons in the leading role.

In 2021, actor Daniel Brühl presented his directorial debut at the Berlinale with the neighborhood study "Nebenan" ("Next Door"). Christl was also responsible for the costumes in this film. In 2022, the new adaptation of the classic novel "All Quiet on the Western Front", directed by Edward Berger, was released in cinemas. Lisy Christl received a BAFTA nomination for the costume design of the anti-war film set in the trenches of the First World War. The German-British-US co-production won seven BAFTAs and a sensational four gold trophies at the Oscars. Lisy Christl also received her fourth nomination for a German Film Award in 2023 for her work on this film.