Sönke Wortmann

Sönke Wortmann (25 August 1959 in Marl, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German film director and producer.

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 and later SpVgg Erkenschwick in the German 3rd division. After three years he gave up the idea of becoming a professional football player.

One semester he studied sociology before entering the University of Television and Film 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 Die glückliche Familie. His debut feature film Der bewegte Mann 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 The Hollywood Sign, based on Leon de Winter's novel "De hemel van Hollywood", in the USA with a very good cast. The Hollywood Sign 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 Confederations Cup 2005 and 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 team manager 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 14 August 2006 as a preview and premiered in cinemas on 5 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.

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