Ed Herzog

Biography

Ed Herzog was born in Calw in the Black Forest on November 5, 1965. He studied at Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb) from 1991 to 1998 where he completed first short films like "Happy Weekend" (1994) and "Eine Schürze aus Speck" (1994). The former also served as a base for his debut feature "Happy Weekend" (1996) which preceded the multiple award-winning short "Ku'damm Security" (1997).

After graduating, Herzog first worked for TV, directing episodes for series such as "Himmel und Erde", "Der Fahnder" and "Der Elefant" as well as the made-for-TV feature "Bloch: Schwarzer Staub". In 2005, he made his second feature which he co-authored with Paul Herzberg, the transatlantic road movie "Almost Heaven" starring Heike Makatsch. Makatsch also starred in Herzog's third feature film "Schwesterherz" ("Twisted Sister", 2006) about a seemingly poised music producer who goes on holiday to Benidorm with her younger sister.

Then, Herzog turned to TV productions again for several years. He made a number of episodes for the crime series "Unter Verdacht", "Polizeiruf 110" and "Tatort" for which he also directed two entries of the Konstanz team Eva Mattes and Sebastian Bezzel.

It was only in 2013, seven years after "Schwesterherz", that Herzog returned to the big screen with "Dampfnudelblues" based on the novel by Rita Falk and starring Sebastian Bezzel as likable village cop Franz Eberhofer. In 2014, "Winterkartoffelknödel", another "Eberhofer" crime caper, followed. Eventually, after shooting the Konstanz "Tatort" "Côte d'Azur" in 2015, Herzog made two more "Eberhofer" films: "Schweinskopf al dente" (2016) and "Grießnockerlaffäre"(2017). The latter gained the Bavarian Film Award 2018 for Best Production (ex aequo "The Happy Prince").

For the crime series "Tatort" Herzog shot the episode "Der wüste Gobi" (2017), a case of the Weimar investigation team Lessing and Dorn (Nora Tschirner and Christian Ulmen).

With "Sauerkrautkoma" (2018) he then directed another successful "Eberhofer" film adaptation, which won the audience award at the Bavarian Film Award 2019. At the Munich Film Festival in June 2019, Herzog's TV thriller "Ein verhängnisvoller Plan" premiered about a policeman who wakes up one morning next to his dead lover; being unable to remember anything he decides to dispose of the body secretly.  

A few weeks later, in August 2019, Herzog's next feature was released: the sixth "Eberhofer" crime caper entitled "Leberkäsjunkie". The comedy won the Audience Award at the Bavarian Film Awards in January 2020; the following year, in view of the cinemas being closed due to the pandemic, the Bavarian Film Awards organized the "Audience Film of the Decade," in which the audience award winners of the past ten years were put to the vote - and here, too, "Leberkäsjunkie" emerged as the winner.  

 At the 2021 Munich Film Festival, Herzog presented the television drama "3 ½ Stunden," set in the last hours before the Berlin Wall was built and the GDR border closed on August 13, 1961. The film won the Bernd Burgemeister Fernsehpreis for Best Production. Shortly thereafter, Herzog's next Eberhofer caper, "Kaiserschmarrndrama," was released, followed in 2022 and 2023 by "Guglhupfgeschwader" and "Rehragout-Rendezvous," respectively.