Biography
Ludi Boeken, born 1952, started to study at London Film School in 1970. After his successful graduation in 1973, he went to University of Tel Aviv for three more years. During the 1980s, he started his career in the film business as a producer and produced films like Krzystof Zanussi"s "Wo immer Du bist" ("Wherever You Are", 1988), Robert Altman"s film "Vincent & Theo (1990), or George Miller"s film "Zeus und Roxanne" (1997). His production "Zug des Lebens" ("Train of Life", 1998) drew a lot of attention: The black comedy depicts how a Jewish village community manages to escape from the Nazis by seizing a train and disguising as Nazi soldiers.
Two years after his less successful debut as a director, the comedy "Britney, Baby, One More Time" (2002), Ludi Boeken finished the thriller "Deadlines", co-directed by Michael A- Lerner, that won the award as "Best International Feature" at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, among other awards. With his third film as a director, Boeken again picked up a Jewish survival story during the Third Reich, just like his production "Zug des Lebens": Based on a true story, the drama "Unter Bauern" ("Among Peasants") tells the story of a family of German Jews who are on the run from the Nazis and take shelter with a peasant family that hides them until the end of the war.