Gallery
All Pictures (6)Biography
Volker Koepp, born, June 22, 1944, in Stettin, finished high school in 1962 and graduated from an apprenticeship as a machinist with a skilled worker diploma. He subsequently studied at Technische Universität Dresden's department of fluid mechanics from 1963 to 1965. One year later, he started to study at Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst Potsdam-Babelsberg (today: Hochschule für Film "Konrad Wolf") and graduated in 1969 with the documentary film "Sommergäste bei Majakowski" (already finished in 1967) and the documentary film "Wir haben schon eine ganze Stadt gebaut" about a brigade of construction workers on a major construction site.
After finishing an episode of the collective production "Der Oktober kam..." that was headed by Karl Gass in 1970, Koepp focused entirely on documentary films. Still in the same year, he got a permanent position as a director at DEFA studio for documentary films where he worked in the group "dokument" in East Berlin. During this time, Koepp developed his precise "behind the scenes" perspective and his talent to win the trust of the people he portrayed in his films – without ever abusing this trust.
Koepp's films are informed by three main topics: together with the writers Wera and Claus Küchenmeister, he made a series of film essays about people who have in common their connection to the working-class movement and to antifascism: "Teddy" (1973) about the youth of KPD leader Thälmann, "Slatan Dudow" (1974) about the marxist filmmaker, "Er könnte ja heute nicht schweigen" (1975) about the poet Erich Weinert, and "Ich erinnere mich noch" (1977) about the antifascist Walter Hähnel.
Simultaneously, Koepp started an ambitious long-term project in 1974: Together with his cinematographer Christian Lehmann, he followed the development of several young female workers in the hosiery factory "Ernst Lück" in Wittstock – and distilled exemplary conflicts and problems of everyday life in the GDR from it. After four single short documentary films, including "Mädchen in Wittstock" that won the Interfilm award at the 1975 Berlinale, Koepp finished this cycle in 1984 for the time being with the long, summarizing documentary film "Leben in Wittstock".
In 1976, Koepp and Lehmann started a series of "landscape films" in collaboration with the writer Gotthold Gloger. Already with the first film of the series, "Das weite Feld" (1976), Koepp avoided to obstruct his access to the filmed persons and landscapes with an in advance developed screen play. Furthermore, he refused any explanatory commentary. One distinguishing quality of his films is the fact that Koepp despite his extreme constraint never withdrew into a distance without prospects. "The author's attitude and his standpoint have to be in the material itself", Koepp described his artistic approach.
For his documentary film "Feuerland", Koepp worked for the first time with cinematographer Thomas Plenert – the starting point of collaboration that lasts until today: Since then, Plenert has filmed nearly all of Koepp's film and has effectively emphasized Koepp"s narrative style with his camera work. In 1988/89, Koepp finished "Märkische Ziegel", a report about a brickyard in Zehnedick where workers still did nearly the same hard physical labour as their predecessors did 100 years ago. Vast parts of the film were banned in the GDR. Two years later – after the German reunification – Koepp made the film "Märkische Gesellschaft mbH" at the same place that had fundamentally changed in the meantime: The hard labour had been replaced by paralyzing unemployment.
During the following years, Koepp stayed true to his controversial topics: After the end of the Cold War, he finished "Die Wismut", a film that sheds an unadorned view on uranium mining in the Ore Mountains and on the merciless wear and tear of man and nature. The film won the award of German film critics in 1993. Furthermore, Koepp kept a focus on Wittstock: "Neues aus Wittstock" (1990 to 1992) was filmed under aggravated conditions. The company did not allow the team to film inside the factory, and the women who still worked there were unwilling to be interviewed for the film. Finally, "Wittstock, Wittstock" (1997) that won the award of German film critics in 1998 presented the women who although they had lost their familiar social connections had not become totally pessimistic but assessed the new situation with a healthy dose of skepticism and criticism.
Koepp then tapped into a new landscape with "Kalte Heimat" ("Cold Homeland"), a film that tells from the everyday life of a Russian German family that had relocated from Kazakhstan to East Prussia. In compliance with Koepp's artistic standpoint, he went without the translation of the answers that were mainly given in Russian language – a radical decision that nevertheless worked because the sensitivities of the people were strongly conveyed by the images. "Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann" (1998), a moving portrait of the two last surviving jews in Czernowitz, won the German film award as "Best documentary film" in 1999 and also won the main award at the well-known Nyon documentary film festival in 1999.
With "Die Gilge" (1999) und "Kurische Nehrung" (2000), Koepp returned once more to East Prussia. In "Uckermark" (2001), he again investigated the change of conditions after the German reunification in a Brandenburg area. "Dieses Jahr in Czernowitz" ("This Year in in Czernowitz", 2004), a sequel to "Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann", documented his second visit to the Ukrainian city when Koepp was accompanied by former emigrants.
In his following films, Koepp further dealt with remote but historical important sections of the country and the repercussions social and political changes had and have on its inhabitants: "Pommerland" (2005), for instance, presented the picturesque Polish region Pomerania as an area that most of the young people have left and that has an unemployment rate of up to 75 percent. "Holunderblüte" ("Elder Blossom", 2007) is a portray of a group of children from the region of Kaliningrad who have not lost their optimism despite the extremely difficult conditions under which they grow up. "Holunderblüte" won the Grand Prize at the festival "Cinéma du Réel" in Paris and was named Best Documentary at the Preis der deutschen Filmkritik.
Koepp next made the TV documentary "Memelland" (2008) and contributed to the omnibus documentary project "24 h Berlin - Ein Tag im Leben" (2009, TV). Following the theatrical release "Berlin-Stettin" (2009), he directed the segment "Im Wind" for the TV documentary "20 x Brandenburg" (2010) and portrayed the eponymous Baltic region in "Livland" (2012, TV).
2013 saw the premiere of Koepp's documentary "In Sarmatien", in which he focuses on the vast Eastern-European landscape that was known as Sarmatien in ancient times. In 2014, the now 70-years-old Koepp received the lifetime achievement award at the International Film Festival Amiens. The same year, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
His next feature, the documentary "Landstück" ("Piece of Land"), premiered at the 2016 Berlin IFF. Two years later, he followed up with "Seestück," a film about nature and people in different places on the Baltic Sea, which won the audience award at the 2018 Duisburg Film Week.
In the Forum of the Berlinale 2023, Koepp presented "Gehen und Bleiben" ("Leaving and Staying"), a film in which he travels to biographical and literary places of the author Uwe Johnson and speaks with people, mainly in northeastern Germany, who - based on the motifs of going and staying and the confrontation with German history that run through Johnson's work - tell of memories, of staying and leaving, but also of Johnson. The movie was released in July 2023.