Doris Dörrie receives Kassel Grimm Poetics Professorship

Dörrie will give her public inaugural lecture and a poetics seminar for students at the university in North Hesse. In addition, Dörrie will comment on her own films at a public screening.

Dörrie (64) celebrated her breakthrough as a director with the film "Männer" (1985). Nearly 40 more feature films and documentaries followed, for which she often also wrote the screenplay, including the tragicomic episodic film "Bin ich schön?" (1998), the chamber piece-like film "Nackt" (2002), "Kirschblüten - Hanami" (2008) and currently "Kirschblüten & Dämonen" (2019). Her feature films in particular often come across as humorous, are relationship and social comedies, and work with comic exaggeration. Likewise, many of her films are infused with the motif of death. Repeatedly, Buddhist attitudes towards life are of importance. Many of her films are set in foreign lands.

"Masks and masking, disguises and role-playing are varied again and again. In this way, a field of tension arises between the familiar and the foreign, the humorous and the sad, the bizarre and the existential, which Dörrie spans with narrative ease and plays on narratively in the true sense of the word," explains Prof. Dr. Stefanie Kreuzer, a literature and media scholar at the University of Kassel and responsible for the poetics professorship. Dörrie has received numerous awards for her films; in 2019 she was appointed as a member of the jury for the Oscars. Already since 1997, the Hanover native has been a professor at the University of Television and Film in Munich.

In addition, Dörrie has been increasingly successful as an author. She received the German Book Prize for her autobiographical novel "Das blaue Kleid" (2002). With her current book publication "Leben, schreiben, atmen" (2019), she provides impulses for creative writing to a large readership.

"With Dörrie, we have won probably the best-known contemporary German film director for the Kassel Grimm Poetics Professorship, who also has a significant readership as a literary figure," said Prof. Kreuzer. "She is also an outstanding appointment because she comes quasi in personal union as a film and opera director, author and professor. Kassel audiences have much to look forward to!"

N.B.: The first version of this PM spoke of tentative dates in early July. Due to the Corona pandemic, the inaugural lecture, seminar and film screening have been postponed indefinitely. Dates and locations will be announced as soon as they are finalized. (16. 4. 2020)

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Stefanie Kreuzer
University of Kassel
Modern German Literature / Media Studies
Tel.: +49 561 804 3319
Email: stefanie.kreuzer@uni-kassel.de

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communication, Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 561 804-1961
E-Mail: presse[at]uni-kassel[dot]de
www.uni-kassel.de