Peter Fleischmann

Peter Fleischmann (26 July 1937 – 11 August 2021) was a German film director, screenwriter and producer. He worked also as an actor, cutter, sound engineer, interviewer and speaker. Fleischmann belonged to the New German Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for directing the 1969 Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern (Hunting Scenes from Bavaria), but he produced films of many genres.

Life and career Peter Fleischmann was born in Zweibrücken. He had contact with representatives of the French Nouvelle Vague movement, and became a friend of Jean-Claude Carrière, with whom he later wrote screenplays.

His first full-length film was released in 1969, Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern, based on the play of the same name by Martin Sperr, who also played the leading role. The film reflects critically how a Bavarian village deals with outsiders, especially the homosexual character played by Sperr. The film was awarded prizes, including the Filmband in Silber of Deutscher Filmpreis. It was suggested for a nomination as the Oscars' best foreign film but was not nominated. The same year, Fleischmann and Volker Schlöndorff founded the film production company Hallelujah-Film. In (1974), he created a provocative satire on the sexfilm wave. His 1979 film The Hamburg Syndrome (Die Hamburger Krankheit) about an unknown infectious plague in German, with actor Helmut Griem, received attention again in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fleischmann's films were often critically acclaimed, but not successful at the box office, which reduced the potential for projects in the 1980s. Schlöndorff described him as a Renaissance person, comparable to Orson Welles, who had visions but was reduced to early works. In 1990, he created Es ist nicht leicht ein Gott zu sein (Hard to Be a God), an elaborate film after a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Faithful to his early documentaries, he produced Deutschland, Deutschland from interviews with simple passers-by in Germany's East and West about Die Wende, indicating future difficulties after Germany's reunification. He was active with the restoration of several of his films.

Awards 1966 – Special Prize for Educative and Didactic Film for Children of the Venice Film Festival for Alexander and a Car without the Left Headlight

Director Films directed by Fleischmann include: 1983: (Sacrilege or Mischief), screenplay with Jacques Rozier, also actor, cutter, producer 1987: Der Al Capone von der Pfalz, documentary, also actor, script, commentary, interviews, sound, producer 1989: Hard to Be a God, screenplay with Jean-Claude Carrière, based on Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's 1964 novel Hard to Be a God, also producer 1991: Deutschland, Deutschland (Germany, Germany), documentary, also actor, script, interviews, producer 1993: Mein Onkel der Winzer, TV documentary, also speaker, script, interviews, producer 2006: Mein Freund der Mörder (My Friend the Murderer), documentary, also speaker, script, interviews, producer

Screenwriter 1986: Les Exploits d'un jeune Don Juan, directed by Gianfranco Mingozzi, screenplay with Jean-Claude Carrière — based on Guillaume Apollinaire's 1911 novel