Houff, Reinhard

Reinhard Hauff is the son of a government official and the younger brother of television director and producer Eberhard Hauff . He studied German studies, theater art and sociology. He dropped out of school to work as a second director on television. In collaboration with Michael Pfleghar and Rolf von Südow , he specialized in the entertainment sector.

In 1968, Hauff took up documentary films. The following year, he directed his first feature film Die Revolte , scripted by Peter Glotz and Volker Koch. The film described the life of an insurance employee who, one fine day, quits work and joins student protests and gradually rolls downhill. Starring Hans Brenner a year later played a leading role with Hauff in Matthias Kneisle, a film about the Bavarian robber at the turn of the century. Hauff's colleagues Rainer Werner Fasbinder , Volker Schlöndorf and Franz Peter Wirth also starred in this film.

In 1973, Schlöndorf and Hauff founded the film production company Bioskop and thereby achieved political and creative independence, which contributed to the development of auteur cinema in Germany in the 1970s.

Hauff's major directorial success was the Stamheim film, which tells of the trial of terrorists of the Red Army Faction in a prison in the Stuttgart district of Stamheim in 1986, and the film adaptation of Berlin's musical Linie 1 in 1988. At the Berlin Film Festival in 1986, Hauff's Steimheim movie caused a scandal. The chairman of the jury, Gina Lollobrigida, did not agree with the democratically accepted decision of the jury, violated confidentiality and openly expressed her negative attitude to the tape.

In 1993-1995, Reinhard Hauff was director of the German Academy of Film and Television in Berlin.

• filmportal.de (German)