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Klaus Lemke, born October 13th, 1940 in Landsberg/Warthe, is considered to be one of the most opinionated and – by his own definition – anti-intellectual film makers in Germany. He grew up in Düsseldorf and, following his Abitur, made a living with odd-jobs, including as an asphalt-worker. He abandoned his studies of art history and philosophy after six semesters.
After a number of assistant-director positions in Munich in 1963/4 (under Fritz Kortner, among others), he became a contributor to the magazine "Film" (1964/5), which went in stride with the more academic "Filmkritik" but also concerned itself with the ostracized American Genre-Cinema. In the context of the "Neue Münchner Gruppe" (New Munich Group), namely Rudolf Thome, Max Zihlman, Werner Enke and May Spils, he directed a total of six short films in 1965/6, including "Kleine Front" (Small Front) and "Das Haus am Meer" (The House on the Sea). In "König von Schwabing" (King of Schwabing), in which "coolness" was a key motif, he epitomized the lifestyle of the Munich bohemians. Concerning his political "Dilemma", he commented in retrospect: "I thought America was so very cool that I would have happily marched into Vietnam and protested against it at the exact same time."
His first feature-length film "48 Stunden bis Acapulco" (48 Hours to Acapulco, 1967) follows a dropout from Schliersee to Rome and Mexico – a man striving to hold his ground as an adventurer and gangster in the Jetset Society. In the same year "Negresco**** -- Eine tödliche Affäre" (Negresco**** -- A Deadly Affair) was released, in which an unsuccessful photographer aspires to rise above his relationship with an urbane woman in high society. Following the failure of these two cinema-released films taking place all over the world, Lemke remained, according to Ponkie, "stuck on Leopoldstraße"; shortly thereafter he began to work for television. His first film for WDR ("Brandstifter", 1968) caused a bit of a scandal: it reacted directly to the Berlin department store assault by Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader, whom Lemke personally knew.
Lemke defined himself with his energetic style, distinctive from the first Renovation-Generation of the Oberhausen-Manifest, the works of which he had already found to be "Väter-Filme" (Father-Films). The tendencies akin to those of Schlöndorff's literature-to-film adaptations disappointed him – as did exertive social obligations. In spite of his cinephillic affinities for pose and genre, which the Munich group had already differentiated from other representatives of New German Cinema, he was wholly interested in unwrought "reality". Alongside his abandonment of finely-tuned screenplays and perfect production, his work with amateur actors became his trademark. Lemke clarified this in a statement, saying that he was not interested in actors, but rather "real people" and their stories, which he happened upon in his periphery and "on the street".
Beginning in 1975, Lemke directed a number of films with Cleo Kretschmer and Wolfgang Fierek, including the Grimme-awarded "Amore" (1977/8), in which an unremarkable vegetable seller campaigns against a suburban Casanova. Lemke was also involved in a long-term intimate relationship with Cleo Kretschmer. What is more, he has come to be known as the discoverer of Iris Berben and Christine Zierl, alias "Dolly Dollar". In addition to his propensity for his adopted home (Munich) and the Bavarian province, Hamburg is an important locale for Lemke. He secured for himself a loyal cult following with his 1972 "Rocker", in which an aging, just-released petty criminal roughs up the Kiez with his motorcycle gang.
Following a carrier-hiccup as a result of a cocaine suit in the 1980s, Lemke succeeded once again in 1992 with "Die Ratte" (The Rat), which also takes place in Hamburg's red-light district. Two more of his youngest films are set in the Hanseatic City: "Träum weiter, Julia!" (Keep on Dreaming, Julia!) and "3 Minute Heroes", which is about the everyday fates of amateur actors in a 360° view of St. Pauli. He kept his small-budget "Guerilla Tactics" of filming, without sponsoring or professional actors, continually over several years of television work. "Last Minute Jamaika" (2002), about two Munich interns who vacation in the Caribbean, brought him once more as near to Acapulco as he's been since his work in the cinema began. In an entertaining interview on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 2005, he acknowledged that he could win "cool" aspects even from "uncool" Germany.
He immediately proved this in his next movie: the summer comedy "Träum weiter, Julia!". Timo Jacobs and amateur actress Julia Spitzner are playing the main characters in a story of a young woman who tries to conquer the heart of a notorious womanizer with a quite uncommon trick. With his anthology film "3 Minuten Heroes" which plays in the redlight district of Hamburg and "Finale", a love story between an actress whose star is rising and a young prostitute, he likewise remained true to his improvising style and once more worked almost exclusively with amateur actors. In "Undercover Ibiza" he tells a classic threesome story: Lemke plays a retired colonel who, while pretending to search for his missing son, seduces his son's girlfriend.
With "Dancing with Devils" (2008) he again shot a vibrant genre film in this typical and unique style which is Klaus Lemke's trademark. The main character of the movie is a young woman, who after having been released from prison tries to start a new life in Hamburg's redlight district. But she can't escape her past, since the revengeful girlfriend of the man whom she watched dying without interfering is chasing her. With "Schmutziger Süden" (2010) Lemke returned to Munich and tells the story of a young man from Hamburg who came to this renowned city in southern Germany in order to seduce beautiful women. But all too soon he has to realize, that girls nowadays are very different from what they used to be.
With over 70 years of age, Lemke tirelessly continued making films: in 2011, he presented the tragicomedy "3 Kreuze für einen Bestseller", about a writer without any talent. In February 2012, "Berlin für Helden" premiered, a film about a couple of young people from Munich who come to the German capital in search of money and fast sex. In a deliberate move on Lemke's part, the premiere took place directly before the Berlinale, to which his film was not invited - although Klaus Lemke is considered by many critics to be one of the last authentic auteur filmmakers in Germany. As a protest at the Berlinale opening ceremony, Lemke stuck his bare butt out to the premiere guests, and advised festival director Dieter Kosslick that it would be better if he organised a "Culinary Olympics". "Berlin für Helden" was released in German cinemas in April 2012.
The Munich Film Festival 2014, under new leadership, dedicated a special series to him as a tribute - after Lemke had previously been ignored by the festival. Lemke's following films all celebrated their premieres at the Munich Film Festival.
In the following years he continued to realize films, most of them low-budget productions: the crook story "Kein großes Ding" (2014), the stormy ménage-à-trois "Unterwäschelügen" (2016), the self-reflective filmmaker story "Making Judith!" (2017), the girl power story "Bad Girl Avenue" (2018) and "Neue Götter in der Maxvorstadt", which focused on the art and fashion scene. The last three films were all shot in the immediate vicinity of Lemke's apartment in Munich. At a pop-up event at the Munich Film Festival 2020, which was cancelled due to the Corona pandemic, "Ein Callgirl für Geister" premiered, a few months before Lemke's 80th birthday.
Klaus Lemke died on July 7, 2022, just one day after the TV release of his last film, "Champagner für die Augen - Gift für den Rest", a tribute to the lifestyle of the 1970s using excerpts from his own works.