Sönke Wortmann (August 25, 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German film director and producer.
[>>]Source: WikipediaSönke Wortmann (August 25, 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German film director and producer.
Biography
Wortmann's father was a miner. After Wortmann's A-Levels he wanted to become a professional football player and started playing with Westfalia Herne at the third best category and with SP Vgg Erkenschwick. After three years he gave up the idea of becoming a professional football player. One semester he studied sociology, before entering the academy for TV and film in Munich to study film directing. After spending some time at the London Royal College of Art he finished his career successfully. While studying, he worked as a taxi-driver and actor, for example in the TV series A happy family, from the channel Bayerischer Rundfunk. His debut feature film Der bewegte Mann (Maybe… maybe not) was released in 1994. It became one of the most successful German film of the post-war era. Das Superweib was filmed, as he himself said, to prove that it is possible to make "a successful film out of a successful novel". Der Campus was more or less accomplished on the same terms, but achieved fewer viewers. Films like Mr. Bluesman and the drama film in episodes St Pauli Nacht, for which he was acclaimed by critics, turned out to be commercial failures and didn't run a long time in cinemas. Wortmann shot Der Himmel von Hollywood (The Hollywood Sign), based on Leon de Winter's the world bestseller, in the USA with a very good cast. Der Himmel von Hollywood came out in 2004 in Germany, but didn't run long in cinemas. Wortmann sees The Miracle of Bern as his greatest success, which became the most successful film in German cinemas in the year 2003. During the Confederation Cup 2005 and during the Football World Cup 2006 he joined the German football team on their trip. At every match he sat on the trainer's bank and, by order and for account of national trainer trainer Jürgen Klinsmann, he prepared films which were later shown to the players in order to prepare them for an upcoming match. The two-hour documentary film on the world cup, produced from over 100 hours of filming material, was presented to the German national football team on the 14th of August 2006 as a preview and premiered in cinemas on the 5th of December 2006 under the title Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen. The film had more than 4 million viewers and was a big success. The net profits of the film were donated to SOS-Children's Villages. 1998 Wortmann founded his own production company Little Shark Entertainment GmbH. From 2007 he worked on the project to adapt Pope Joan (novel). The production was carried out by Bernd Eichinger. Initially, the female pope Johanna was going to be portrayed by Franka Potente. In Mai 2008 though, the production company announced that Johanna Wokalek was going to play the pope. The production was also conducted under Oliver Berben. In the year 2009 the film was released in cinemas. Sönke Wortmann is married to the actress Cecilia Kunz and has three children. Wortmann is an active member of the German authors national football team (Autonama). Wortmann also supports "DeinFussballClub" since April 2008. This club's aim is to engage over 30,000 new members every year, who pay 39.95 euros each every year. The foundation of this club was modeled after the English club Ebbsfleet United. Sönke Wortmann is also member of Alliance '90/The Greens.
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