VSK—MAGAZIN 2

⌊Everything is a lie, and that's exactly how it was!⌋

Bernd Lichtenberg über Lothar Holler

Lothar Holler is a storyteller. He tells and perfects stories where the script stops describing them. He makes sensual and tangible what can only be made sensual and tangible through image.

You can have wonderfully long and exciting discussions with him, which I have been doing since I met him during his work on GOOD BYE, LENIN! Among other things, he took on the challenge of supporting Katrin Sass with his production design in Good Bye Lenin!, where the script had the Actress lying in bed for hours on end.

A thankless task, but one that he managed marvellously. Because Lothar's art always comes back to what film means: telling stories in pictures.

He is a person who values dialogue and mutual inspiration, who views film as a collaborative work and is a driving force who champions dialogue between the trades.

His ideas for set designs can be a source of inspiration for me as an author, while also providing sensual offerings for actors, and inspiration that gives wings to their imagination.

He does this again and again, even in the GDR era where he defied the shortage of ideas and improvisation, and in the many films after reunification, where there was inspiration but often too little budget. He did this with the legendary Berliner Straße, which he built for the film SONNENALLEE. Which stood for 15 years and was extended and modified by colleagues for other films in over 350 productions from Polanski to Tarantino.

He received two German film awards for his set designs, but more important for him was the exchange about his work, including Wednesdays in the Prater bar, where he gathered set designers and other filmmakers for a relaxed exchange to talk about film, art, politics and attitude.

Lothar is an engaging and connecting person. Not only in his work. He demonstrated this at the evenings in Prater, but also as a professor of production design at the Babelsberg Film University. Here, too, his aim is to broaden the students' horizons: he demands arguments that go beyond mere opinion. In his courses on literature, in which I was allowed to participate as a guest, he returns to storytelling. He is a person is not impressed by effects who talks about the truth, which is not necessarily reality.

What is actually real? Lothar knows, of course, because he started his career by forging season tickets for the Pankow outdoor pool for his friends. And therefore always sees the greater truth, the truth of art, and would say:

It's all just a lie and that's exactly how it was!

Bernd Lichtenberg über Lothar Holler

Lothar Holler is a storyteller. He tells and perfects stories where the script stops describing them. He makes sensual and tangible what can only be made sensual and tangible through image.

A thankless task, but one that he managed marvellously. Because Lothar's art always comes back to what film means: telling stories in pictures.

In 2023, Lothar was named an honorary member of the VSK. We are delighted to honor his long commitment to the association.