Tom Tykwer

Tom Tykwer
Tom Tykwer, Berlinale, 2009
Born	(1965-05-23) 23 May 1965 Wuppertal, West Germany
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter, film composer
Years active	1986–present
Spouse	Marie Steinmann (m. 2009)

Tom Tykwer (German: [ˈtɪkvɐ]; born 23 May 1965) is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, and composer. He is best known internationally for directing the thrillers Run Lola Run (1998), Heaven (2002), and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), and the action thriller The International (2009). He collaborated with The Wachowskis as co-director in the science fiction film Cloud Atlas (2012) and the Netflix series Sense8 (2015–present).

Early life

Tykwer was born in Wuppertal, West Germany. Fascinated by film from an early age, he started making amateur Super 8 films at the age of eleven. He later helped out at a local arthouse cinema in order to see more films, including those for which he was too young to buy tickets. After graduating from high school, he unsuccessfully applied to numerous film schools around Europe; he moved to Berlin where he worked as a projectionist. In 1987, at the age of 22, he became the programmer of the Moviemento cinema and became known to German directors as a film buff.

Career

In Berlin, Tykwer met and befriended the filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim, who urged him to create stories from his own experience. He suggested, for example, that Tykwer record arguments with his girlfriend, and turn them into a short film. Because (1990) was screened at the Hof Film Festival and well received by the audience, which inspired Tykwer to continue pursuing filmmaking. He made a second short film, "Epilog" (1992), for which he took on personal financial debt, but he also gained valuable technical filmmaking experience. Tykwer wrote the screenplay for—and directed—his first feature film, the psychological thriller Deadly Maria. It aired on German television and had a limited theatrical release in Germany and the international film festival circuit.

In 1994, Tykwer founded the production company X Filme Creative Pool with Stefan Arndt, Wolfgang Becker, and Dani Levy. Tykwer and Becker wrote the screenplay for Life Is All You Get while working on Tykwer's second feature, Winter Sleepers (1997), a much bigger and more complex production than Deadly Maria. Winter Sleepers brought Tykwer to the attention of German cineastes and film festivals, but he was struggling financially.

He knew he needed a new film, and the result was Run Lola Run (1998), which became the most successful German film of 1998, scored $7 million at the US box office, and elevated Tykwer to international fame. As Lola was becoming a success worldwide, Tykwer was already at work on his next film, The Princess and the Warrior, shot in his home town of Wuppertal. The film centered on a love story between a nurse and a former soldier.

Miramax produced his next film, Heaven (2002), based on a screenplay by the late Polish filmmaker, Krzysztof Kieślowski. It was shot in English, starred Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi, and filmed in Turin and Tuscany. He was approached by French producers to film a short contribution to Paris, je t'aime (2006), a film composed of 20 short films by many famous directors depicting love in Paris. Tykwer shot the 10-minute short film, True, with Natalie Portman and Melchior Beslon. He shot the film quickly with almost no pre-production. The result, Tykwer later said, "symbolises an entire life for me, in just ten minutes."

Tykwer's next film was an adaptation of the novel Perfume by the German novelist Patrick Süskind. It was filmed in the Spanish cities of Figueras, Girona and Barcelona. Tykwer later made his Hollywood debut with the big-budgeted 2009 conspiracy thriller The International, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, which was shot in several locations ranging from Berlin, Milan, New York City, and Istanbul. The film received a lukewarm reception from the public and critics alike.

He directed 2016's A Hologram for the King, starring Tom Hanks and Sarita Choudhury, based on a novel by American novelist Dave Eggers.

Pale 3

Since Winter Sleepers, the music for all of Tykwer's films (with the exception of Heaven) has been composed by Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil, and Tykwer, unusual for a film director. The trio named Pale 3, originally a film scoring group, expanded to produce music unrelated to film.

Filmography

Year	Title	Functioned as
		Director	Screenwriter	Producer	Composer
1990	Because (short)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1992	Epilog (short)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1993	Deadly Maria	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1997	Life is All You Get	No	Yes	No	No
	Winter Sleepers	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
1998	Run Lola Run	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
1999	Absolute Giganten	No	No	Yes	No
2000	The Princess and the Warrior	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
2002	Heaven	Yes	No	No	No
2004	True (short)	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
	Lautlos (Soundless)	No	No	Yes	No
2005	Ich Dich auch (documentary)	No	No	No	Yes
2006	Paris, je t'aime segment: Faubourg Saint-Denis	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
	Perfume: The Story of a Murderer	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
	A friend of Mine	No	No	Yes	No
2007	Das Herz ist ein dunkler Wald	No	No	Yes	No
2009	The International	Yes	No	No	Yes
	Deutschland 09 Segment: Feierlich reist	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2010	Soul Boy	No	No	Yes	No
	Three	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
2011	Endlich (documentary)	No	No	Yes	No
	60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero One-minute segment	Yes	Yes	No	No
2012	Nairobi Half Life	No	No	Yes	No
	Cloud Atlas	Yes with the Wachowskis	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Rosakinder (TV movie)	Yes	No	No	No
2013	Culture Hacking	No	No	Yes	No
2015	Sense8 (TV series)	Yes	No	No	Yes
2016	A Hologram for the King	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

Awards

• 1994: Bavarian Film Awards, Best New Director
• 1998: Bavarian Film Awards, Best Production
• 2005: State-Award of the Film Commission North Rhine-Westphalia
• 2006: Bavarian Film Awards, Best Director
• 2012: Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Score (Cloud Atlas)

External links

• Official website
• Tom Tykwer at IMDb
• Tom Tykwer at the Filmportal.de
• Interview at Stumped?