Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Florian Maria Georg Christian, Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck (born 2 May 1973) is an Academy Award-winning Austrian-German director and screenwriter.

In 1996, he won a directing internship with Richard Attenborough on In Love and War, and then went to study at the Fiction Directing Class of the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (University of Television and Film Munich), Germany, alma mater of directors as diverse as Wim Wenders and Roland Emmerich.
His first short film, Dobermann (which Donnersmarck wrote, produced, directed and edited) broke the school record for the number of awards won by a student production. It became an international festival sensation, and Donnersmarck travelled the festival circuit for over a year. His first feature film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) won the European Film Award for Best Film, Best Actor and Best Screenplay in 2006. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck went on to win the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s award for Best Foreign Film, was nominated for the Golden Globe (which went to Clint Eastwood instead), and on 25 February 2007 won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In 2007, Henckel von Donnersmarck was one of 115 new members to be invited to join AMPAS. –Wikipedia