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Born in Hanover in 1968, Veit Helmer began making short films as a teenager and received prizes at amateur and youth film festivals. At the age of 18, he began a two-year training program as a floor manager at NDR, which also included internships in the cutting room, film lab and dubbing studio. He subsequently moved to Berlin and worked as an assistant director and production manager with such directors as Mathieu Carriére, Heiko Schier and Philip Groening. Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he moved to East Berlin to study at the Hochschule fuer Schauspielkunst "Ernst Busch".
In 1991, he was accepted onto the directors' course at the Academy of Television & Film in Munich (HFF/M). In 1992, he set up his production company in Berlin and has been a visiting lecturer on "visual storytelling" at film schools in Germany and abroad (Uzbekistan, Jakarta) since 1999. After winning several prizes for his short films, Helmer made his first feature "Tuvalu" in 1998, receiving the FIPRESCI Award at Ghent/Flanders and Audience Awards at Saarbruecken, Kiev and Luenen, the Bavarian Film Award for Best Newcomer Director, acting awards and special prizes in Moscow, and a nomination for the 2000 German Film Awards in the category of Best Director. His second feature film "Gate to Heaven" (2003) received its world premiere at the 2003 Hof Film Days and was released by Prokino in German cinemas in December 2003.
His other films include: "Tour d'Amour" (short, 1989), "Die Raeuber" (short, 1990), "Zum Greifen nah" (short, 1992), "Der Fensterputzer" (short, 1993), "Tour Eiffel" (short, 1994), "Surprise!" (short, 1995), "Die Brueder Skladanowsky" (as screenwriter and co-producer, dir: Wim Wenders, 1996), "City Lives" (documentary, 1999), "Hati-Hati, Malam-Malam" (short, 2000), "Uzbek Express!" (short, 2002), "Hundeleben" (short, 2004), "Caspian Bride" (short, 2005), "Behind the Couch – Casting in Hollywood" (2005), "Absurdistan" (2008) and "Baikonur" (2011).
Source: German Films Service & Marketing GmbH