KINO favorites: 7 German movie stars you need to know
Scott Roxborough
March 24, 2017
For the latest in DW's series on the best in German cinema, we pick the seven wonderful German performers - four actresses, three actors - who look poised to take their place on the international stage.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Komplizen Film/NFP/Komplizen Film/NFP marketing & distribution
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KINO favorites: 7 German movie stars you need to know
For the latest in DW's series on the best in German cinema, we picked seven wonderful German performers - four actresses, three actors - who look set to take their place on the international stage.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Nogier
Sandra Hüller
She is by no means a total stranger - Sandra Hüller is popular on German stages, and has enthralled the audience in numerous films. Germany's Oscar-nominated "Toni Erdmann" made her famous on the international scene, which is bound to result in even more role offers over the coming years.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Komplizen Film
Louis Hofmann
This young man is not yet 20 but has already played in several films, and performed on TV. Two films featuring the Berlin Film Festival's German shooting star are currently showing in German cinemas. In 2015, he was spectacular in the role of a tormented boarding student in the drama "Sanctuary."
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Salzgeber & Company Medien
Liv Lisa Fries
Liv Lisa Fries started out on the small screen but has since moved into the cinema. For three years, the Berlin actress convincingly portrayed Lea, a woman suffering from cystic fibrosis in "And I'll be dead tomorrow at noon," which won her the coveted Max Ophüls award. Audiences will next see her in Tom Tykwer's new series "Berlin Babylon," which airs in the fall.
Image: DW/Heike Mund
Paula Beer
Young Paula Beer's career has virtually skyrocketed. Director Chris Kraus discovered the 14-year-old in 2010, and gave her a leading role in the drama "Poll." Her portrayal of a young war widow made waves internationally in the Franco-German coproduction "Franz." The role garnered her an award for Best Newcomer at the 2016 Venice Film Festival.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Monteforte
Antje Traue
German film buffs might not yet be aware of Antje Traue, but she already has quite a few roles under her belt, national as well as international. She played in the 2015 drama "Woman in Gold" and the 2013 superhero film "Man of Steel." Keep an eye out for her later this year in the German comedy "Es war einmal in Deutschland" (Once upon a time in Germany).
Image: IGC Films 2017/Fabrizio Maltese
Jonas Nay
Jonas Nay played various roles in various television series before his breakthrough as a spy in the series "Deutschland 83." The German Cold War thriller won an International Emmy last year for best drama.
Image: picture alliance/RTL/Nik Konietzny
Peter Kurth
Granted, Peter Kurth - born in 1957 - is no youngster, but a successful theater actor, named Actor of the Year in 2014. Kurth has also played many - usually supporting - roles in German TV productions . He may be emerging from the sidelines, however: in 2016, he received the German Film Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a terminally ill ex-boxer.
Image: picture-alliance/AAPimages/Panckow
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Seven is a magic number in the movies. It can evoke evil - think of David Fincher's "Se7en" with its references to the seven deadly sins in the gruesome killings of that film's serial killer - or death itself, as in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal."
But in cinema, seven has also been a metaphor for camaraderie (Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" or John Sturges' Western remake "The Magnificent Seven); temptation (Billy Wilder's "The Seven Year Itch" with Marilyn Monroe in a billowing skirt); or unbridled joy (the MGM musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" or, most famously, the singing, dancing seven dwarfs in Disney's "Snow White").
So with a nod to the gods of cinematic numerology, DW's has selected seven on-screen talents you need to know. Seven performers - four women, three men - who are ready to make the leap from German to international stardom. Our picks could be the next big thing(s) out of Germany.
Most are young: Four of our magnificent seven were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Liv Lisa Fries, Paula Beer, Jonas Nay and Louis Hofmann belong to the first generation of "reunified" Germany.
We've also picked a veteran actor, Peter Kurth, born in 1957, who has spent the bulk of his career paying dues with small but finely crafted roles on film and TV. He is only now, with his German Film Award-winning performance as Herbert, a former boxer dying of ALS in "A Heavy Heart," getting the attention his talent deserves.
Also on our list are a pair of 30-something actresses, featured on the German scene for more than a decade, who, thanks to their recent work, are finally poised to become international stars: Antje Traue in films such as "Pandorum," "Man of Steel" and "Seventh Son," and Sandra Hüller in the Oscar-nominated sleeper hit "Toni Erdmann."
Some come from the theater, others can thank the golden age of TV for their rise, and still others walked straight from the schoolyard onto the big screen. They've played spies and super-villains, widows and workaholics, men imprisoned by others and those enslaved within themselves.
Whether honed professionals or natural talents, every one of our seven is one-of-a-kind. Remember their faces and memorize their names. These seven are going places.
