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Sam Garbarski was born in Planegg near Munich on February 13 1948. He relocated to Belgium in 1970 and started an ad company, which he ran until 1997. After that, he started out as a self-taught director, and until 2003, completed more than 50 commercials and short films, of which the tragic-comedy "Joyeux Noël, Rachid" won an award an the 2001 Giffoni Film Festival. In 2003, Garbarski made his feature film debut as a director with the much-lauded "Le tango des Rashevski", which told the eventful story of a Jewish family in Belgium.
His second movie was the frivolous comedy "Irina Palm", which premiered in the competition of the 2007 Berlin IFF: The film became an audience favorite and went on to win several awards. For her performance as the British housewife who accidentally starts a career in a brothel, lead actress Marianne Faithful received a European Film Prize nomination. The 2010 drama "Vertraute Fremde" marked Garbarski's third feature film as director.
Subsequently, Garbarski shot another movie in 2013: In "Vijay und ich" ("Vijay and I") the german-american duo Moritz Bleibtreu and Patricia Arquette are playing the protagonists of a mistaking comedy. "Vijay und ich" received nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Magritte Awards.
Gabarski's next feature premiered in the section "Berlinale Special" at the 2017 Berlin IFF: Set in post-war Germany in 1946, "Es war einmal in Deutschland…" ("Bye Bye Germany") relates the story of a Jewish salesman who tries to start a new business but is confronted with a haunting chapter from his past.