Florian Gallenberger

Florian Gallenberger
Florian Gallenberger (2016)
Born	(1972-02-23) 23 February 1972 (age 44) Munich, West Germany
Occupation	Director, Writer
Years active	1990 - present

Florian Gallenberger (born 23 February 1972 in Munich) is a German film director. His film Quiero ser (I want to be ...) was awarded the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2001.

Gallenberger appeared in various roles in feature films, TV productions and theater plays from the age of five. From 1992 to 1999, he studied Direction at the University of Television and Film Munich. In 2001, he won the Honorary Foreign Film Award at the Student Academy Awards and an Oscar in the Best Live Action Short Film category for his short film Quiero Ser which is set in Mexico.

In 2004, he made his first feature-length film Shadows of Time starring Indian actors Tannishtha Chatterjee, Prashant Narayanan and Irrfan Khan. The romantic story, written by Gallenberger himself, was spread across 6 decades, beginning in pre-independent India in the 40s. Gallenberger set the film in India and made it entirely in Bengali language to maintain authenticity. He also hired a Bengali communicator for a crash course in the language for non-Bengali members of the 100-member crew.

In 2007 Gallenberger began production of a Chinese-French-German biopictorial film on the wartime experiences of John Rabe, a German businessman who used his Nazi party membership to establish a Safety Zone in Nanking and save over 200,000 Chinese from the Nanking massacre. The story is based upon Rabe's wartime diaries. It premiered at the 59th Berlin Film Festival on 7 February 2009. The film picked up over seven German Film Awards nominations, including Best Film and Best Director.