"A film that will outlive you"

Film studies in Hamburg

Hark Bohm, who originally studied law, broke off his legal clerkship in 1969 and from then on devoted himself entirely to film. He acted in several productions by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, among others, and tried his hand at the short film genre - but it didn't last long. At the beginning of the 1970s, Bohm turned to Michael Ballhaus, who died in 2017 and is now regarded as one of the most important German and international directors of photography, having worked with such greats as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. "I wrote the script forChetan, the Indian boy to Michael Ballhaus, who immediately said: We'll do that! Michael and I sat together every evening and did the image resolution for the next day. He taught me what filmmaking actually is. That was my film school - and the most intensive one imaginable," enthuses Bohm. This thoroughly practical experience shaped him - and he used it for one of his greatest endeavours: the postgraduate course in "Film" at the University of Hamburg.

Together with Opera Director Götz Friedrich, Theatre Director Jürgen Flimm and University President Peter Fischer-Appelt, he embarked on the ambitious project at the end of the 1980s. From 1989 until the opening of the course in 1993, Bohm travelled the world and looked at various film courses: from Havana, Columbia University in New York and the famous UCLA film school in Los Angeles to Moscow and Lodz in Poland, from where he also brought his first camera lecturer Kurt Weber. Bohm used his experiences at the various universities to create a new degree programme, whose lecturers were all experienced personalities from the film business. But what was new about the programme? "I have always seen narrative cinema as a total work of art, the result of a division of labour between people with different talents. The observation that the trades require different talents was a reason for me to say: wait a minute, we really have to do something completely different to pave the way for German narrative cinema." And so the programme began with Directors and Script - in 1996 it was expanded to include Cinematography and Production and was integrated into the Hamburg Media School (HMS) in 2004. Lecturers included Script Writer Peter Steinbach and ZDF Head of Production Peter Gerlach. Bohm had also learnt from his time with Michael Ballhaus, who also founded the course's camera class, that a short, intensive learning phase can be more productive than a long period of study. While students in Munich had to study for five years, Bohm radically shortened the programme in Hamburg to two years. And success has proved him and his team right, as several graduation short films have been nominated for an Oscar in recent years - most recently this year's "Watu Wote" by Director Katja Benrath. But regardless of whether it's the film office, Script Writer's publishing house or film studies: Hark Bohm never tires of emphasising that all these institutions are the result of a group effort. He attributes his penchant for teamwork to his childhood on the island of Amrum, where he grew up after moving away from Hamburg: "There was only one doctor on the island and the nearest hospital was in Niebüll. It's simply necessary to work together, even if you don't see eye to eye. Maybe that's where I got the urge to do things like the Hamburg Film Office or Script Writer's Film Publishing House together with the other filmmakers," says Bohm.

Collaboration with Fatih Akin

His latest collaboration with Fatih Akin is impressive proof that, despite his age, the LOLA winner is still not thinking about quitting. "I findAgainst the wall and alsoInto the fate are real masterpieces. For Fatih, I am at best a craftsman who says: Wait a minute, you have to tighten this screw a little more. A technical advisor. I think he's a better filmmaker than I am," says Bohm. When it comes to his collaboration with Golden Globe winner Akin, the old master is full of praise. Just a few days ago, he called Bohm to get some advice for his current project. An ongoing exchange from which both benefit, in which both value the opinion of the other. However, Hark Bohm is currently focusing on a project of his own: together with Herman Weigel, he is writing the script for a film about SS judge Konrad Morgen, which has already received script funding from Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein. Only time will tell whether this will result in a new classic. For Hamburg as a film location, Hark Bohm is already immortal - even if he may not quite believe it yet.