Gallery
All Pictures (3)Biography
Kurt-Gero von Boehm-Bezing was born on April 20, 1954 in Hannover and grew up in Hamburg, Berlin and Heidelberg. He studied law and social sciences in Heidelberg and New York. Already during his studies he began to work as a journalist. From 1973, at the age of 19, he worked as a freelance author for various publications. The year 1975 is of particular significance in Gero von Boehm's career. It was when he began working as an author for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit as well as for several radio stations (including SWF and Deutschlandfunk); he also made his debut as a presenter on SWF 3 with the programme "Südwest Basar". Most importantly, however, he made his first television documentary in 1975 - an area which was soon to become his main field of activity.
In 1978 Boehm founded the production company interscience film together with his wife Christiane von Boehm. He quickly made a name for himself as a director and author of sophisticated TV documentaries and reports. These include "Henry Moore – Begegnung zwischen Licht und Stein" (1982), "Armut in Amerika" (1983), "Die Friedenskinder von Belfast" (1986) and "Die Streetkids von New York" (1988). In addition to his television productions, Boehm hosted the series "Wortwechsel" at Südwestrundfunk from 1980 to 1990, in which he talked to well-known personalities.
In 1991 Boehm received the Hartmann Bund Film and Television Award for the TV documentary "Leben um jeden Preis - Ärzte gegen den Baby-Tod". In 1993 he won the Bavarian Television Award for "Schöpfer Mensch". In the same year he was awarded the culture prize of the Eduard Rhein Foundation for "outstanding journalistic television contributions" (together with Ernst Waldemar Bauer).
In his films, Gero von Boehm often deals with personalities from the world of art and culture, but also from science. He has made documentaries on Alberto Giacometti (2001), Umberto Eco (1995), Audrey Hepburn (2004), Bettina Rheims (2004), David Hockney (1996) and Henry Miller (2017) (to name but a few), but also explored questions of science and the ethics of science in films such as the award-winning "Frankensteins Kinder" (2000) and "Die Menschheitsformel" (2001), for example in discussions with Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg. "There are very close relationships between art and science," Boehm said in an interview in 2002, "People have often compared music with mathematics - the smallest equation has its harmony. It's important for me to encounter these two worlds and to work in these two areas." His films were praised above all for Boehm's talent to make the people behind the public figures appear.
In his series "Mein Leben" (2001-2010) Boehm portrayed personalities such as Armin Mueller-Stahl, Michael Haneke, Norman Mailer and Albert Speer. From 2002 to 2010, he also did the interview series "Gero von Boehm begegnet ..." broadcasted on 3sat. In addition to such portraits of individual persons, Boehm also realised various documentary series, such as "Paläste der Macht" (2004), "Schlösserwelten Europas" ("Castles and Palaces of Europe", 2011-2012), "Terra X: Deutschland-Saga" (2014-2015) and "Terra X: Welten-Saga" (2020).
Between 2012 and 2020 he also directed numerous episodes of the television programme "Precht". In 2016, Gero von Boehm received a Special Mention for his "extraordinary oeuvre" at the Bert-Donnepp-Prize for Media Journalism; in 2017 he was honoured with the Steiger Award in the Media category. In 2019 he won a Bavarian TV Award for the documentary film "Exodus? - Eine Geschichte der Juden in Europa".
The following year, a documentary film by Gero von Boehm was released in the cinemas: "Helmut Newton - The Bad and the Beautiful". Boehm had already portrayed the equally famous and controversial photographer in 2002 for the series "Mein Leben".
He also realized the documentary "Queen Lear" (2022) for television, focusing on the French-British cult singer Amanda Lear, and the six-part ZDF series "Terra X: Welten-Saga II" (2023). Additionally, he continued to direct episodes of the television program "Precht."
Gero von Boehm is a holder of the Order Chevalier des Arts et Lettres of the French Republic, awarded to "persons who have distinguished themselves by their work in the artistic or literary field or by their contribution to the charisma of the arts and literature in France and the world".
He lives alternately in France and Berlin.