Christian Petzold's Cinema of Haunted Figures

Abstract

Betrayed lovers, unfulfilled desires and second chances are ingredients in Petzold’s thoughtful cinema that comments on the human condition in the political calamities which have destroyed, divided and reunited German society in more than half a century. Over the course of a career that started with his graduation film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin, Pilotinnen (Pilots, 1995), Christian Petzold (born in 1960) has emerged as one of the most critical voices of German film. To date, he has made sixteen films for television and cinema that have garnered important national and international prizes. Petzold’s feature films deal with the afterlife of terrorism (Die innere Sicherhe..