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Lothar Lambert

Lothar Lambert

Directing

Biography

No one in Germany can more justifiably call himself an independent filmmaker than Lothar Lambert: 41 films to date since 1971, almost all financed out of his own pocket, as producer, director, screenwriter, actor and, time and again, as editor, cameraman, sound man and distributor. Cinema about sex and longings, self-realization and psychological deformities, desires, the weal and woe of the little-noticed in the (initially only West) Berlin urban jungle. And it is as authentic, shocking and tragicomic as you rarely find in this country. Because they were unusually weird and "dirty" in terms of content and form - especially for the well-behaved German standards - Lambert's works were quickly classified as "underground" in the seventies. And have recently been increasingly ignored by critics and film historians. Having long since become documents of the zeitgeist and thus of contemporary history, it is long overdue to (re)discover these works.

Known For

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7.0

The story of a short but intense friendship between two very different women in Berlin. Mascha, in her mid-30’s, worked as a television editor for years before dropping out to make two self-financed and unexpectedly successful theatrical films. At the moment, she is taking a break – she’s run out of ideas. Her plight is made worse by her boyfriend Frank’s unsympathetic attitude. He is a head of production, from a working class background, an unscrupulous career man, and won’t tolerate an unsuccessful woman around him. In the midst of this exasperating mess, Mascha meets the ‘’wolf girl’’, Dennis, a young black rebel who works as a cleaner in a theater. The girl fascinates Mascha and she finally breaks her long, loveless relationship with frank so she can spend more time with Dennis. The two women move in together: Mascha because she wants to turn the simple ‘’wild’’ Dennis into a more sedate person, and Dennis because she has secret hopes of finding human warmth and shelter.

Wolfgirl

1984Movie
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7.0

Eight short episodes about the psychological and sexual hardships and joys of people in West Berlin at the time: two old-school bourgeois women chat with each other on the street, between the Theater des Westens and a peep show. A woman's session with her psychotherapist takes an unexpected turn. Two men spontaneously arrange to meet for a tête-à-tête, but are in for a surprise. A vagrant tells of her recent experiences and longings. Two young women become unprofessional while watching a porn movie. Two foreigners make a discovery while having sex with each other. A painter finds new inspiration in an unconventional way. Dieter Schidor and Ingrid Caven chat with each other on the street, between the Theater des Westens and a (former) peep show about sex in the age of AIDS.

Forbidden to Forbid

1988Movie
Thank God I’m in the Film Business!
9.0

Eva Ebner is a Berliner who gives the appearance of being rather eccentric. She knows the film business inside out – regardless of whether she’s work- ing behind the camera as an assistant director or in front of it as an actor. Her name is closely associated with a series of now-legendary adaptations of Edgar Wallace’s crime novels which were made in Germany during the 1960s. Upcoming young directors from local film schools have also profited from Ms. Ebner’s unbroken enthusiasm and passion for film. However, this eighty-year-old has a more than broken relationship to the events of her childhood and youth in Gdansk – a time when her life was characterised by an anti-Semitic step-mother and the dangers posed by the Nazi regime. This film portrait does not eschew any of the long dark shadows of that era, nor does it sidestep any friction between portrayer and his subject. (Lothar Lambert)

Thank God I’m in the Film Business!

2003Movie