Eye to Eye: All About German Film

Michael Althen, born October 14, 1962, in München started to write film reviews as a freelance author at the age of 19. After finishing school, he studied German philology and journalism, but dropped out of university before he graduated. From 1984 on, Althen worked as a film critic for famous newspapers and magazines such as “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, “Die Zeit”, and “Der Spiegel”. In 1998, he succeeded Peter Buchka as the managing editor of film reviews at “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, before he became an editor of the arts section of “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” in 2001.

Over the years, Althen has become one of the most famous German speaking film critics with his trenchant reviews, portrays, and essays. He has written books about Robert Mitchum and Dean Martin and has “declared his love for the cinema” in an autobiographically influenced book called “Warte, bis es dunkel ist” (2002). Althen won the Grimme award for his TV documentary “Das Kino bittet zu Tisch – Essen im Film” in 1996. Together with director Dominik Graf, Althen made two documentary essay films: “Das Wispern im Berg der Dinge – Der Schauspieler Robert Graf” (that won Althen another Grimme award in 1998) und “München – Geheimnisse einer Stadt” (“Munich – Secrets of a City”, 2000), an hommage to the native city of both directors.

In 2008, Althen finished the documentary film “Auge in Auge” ("Eye to Eye: All About German Film… ") together with famous film historian Hans Helmut Prinzler. The documentary about the history of German film premieres at the 2008 Berlinale.

Michael Althen died in Berlin, May 12, 2011. —filmportal.de