Ma vie: HANS NEUENFELS

43 min. Arte/ ZDF 2011

Hans Neuenfeld is one of Germany's most influential theater and opera directors as well as a prominent filmmaker and author. He is known as one of the founders of the German "Director's Theater," the avant-garde practice of shaping mostly classical material according to a radically modern vision. Neuenfels has famously brought wild and sometimes sexually explicit imagery to the stage — unfortunately his reputation for scandal and polarization has often obscured his great creative achievements. At the age of twenty-seven, Hans Neuenfels had already mounted thirty plays and by the early 1970s he had firmly established himself as the enfant terrible of German theater. Already as a young man, he was celebrated as one of the fathers of "Regietheater." Neuenfels has remained faithful to his style to this day. At the core of his practice lies his desire to convey to the audience a new perspective on classic subject matter. For Neuenfels, art is never static but always a process and very much alive. He is known for having unsparingly given all his energy to this vital force, to the detriment of his own health. This film offers an intimate perspective on the drive behind his creative work, his handling of successes and failures. Born in 1941, Neuenfels grew up in Krefeld, where he was kicked out of school several times. In his early twenties he became Max Ernst's personal assistant, and the early influence of surrealism and psychoanalysis has shaped his entire oeuvre. In collaboration with his wife, the actress Elisabeth Trissenaar, he has developed more than sixty theater, film, and opera productions. Always the rebel, Hans Neuenfels has not only left his mark on the German theater and opera landscape — he has changed it forever.