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Heinrich Breloer, born February 17, 1942, in Gelsenkirchen, studied german studies and philosophy in Bonn and in Hamburg from 1961 to 1970. Six years later, Breloer obtained a PhD from Hamburg's university for his doctoral dissertation in literary studies and dramatics.
From 1972 on, Breloer worked as a freelance film and TV critic. In 1976, he became a filmmaker himself and finished his first film as a director together with Horst Königstein: the documentary film "Mein Leben war auch kein Spaß". One main characteristic of this and all their next films that mainly dealt with events from recent German history was the recurring alternation between authentic documentary footage and fictional scenes – a stylistic device that Breloer and Königstein, who co-directed all their films until 1982, kept on refining. Initially, they called this stylistic device "open form", but later renamed it to "docu-drama".
After winning Grimme awards for the docu-dramas "Kollege Otto" about the affair revolving around the CoOp manager Bernd Otto, and for "Wehner. Die unerzählte Geschichte" about the life of Herbert Wehner, Breloer caused a stir with "Das Todesspiel", a docu-drama about the abduction and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer by RAF terrorists. The highly-praised film won the special jury awards at the Bavarian film awards and at the Baden-Baden TV Movie Festival, among others.
Four years later, Breloer finished his most ambitious project yet: "Die Manns. Ein Jahrhundertroman" ("The Manns – Novel of a Century") about the annals of the Mann family. The four-part movie was celebrated as a master piece and won numerous awards, including the Grimme award, the Bavarian TV award, the German TV award, and a "Golden Gate" award at the 2002 San Francisco International Film Festival.
After his next docu-drama, "Speer und Er" ("The Devil's Architect", 2004), Heinrich Breloer finally made his first pure feature film for the movie screen: "Die Buddenbrooks" ("Buddenbrooks – The Decline of a Family"), an elaborate, and star-studded adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel by the same name. This film also received numerous positive reviews and was nominated for several film awards. On television, it ran as a two-parter.
After that, it took eleven years until Breloer's next film: the TV two-parter "Brecht" (DE/AT/CZ 2019). about the life of the famous poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht, premiered at the Berlinale 2019 in the Berlinale Special section, but received mixed reviews.