Lutz Mommartz

Biography

For over five decades, experimental filmmaker Lutz Mommartz shaped the German film and art scene with a radically different understanding of film. Since the 1960s, he was active in Düsseldorf as a filmmaker and artist, and his work raised key questions about the authenticity of film and its relationship with the audience. He achieved his international breakthrough in 1967 at the Knokke Festival, when his film "Self-Shots" won an award. Parallel to his work as a municipal official, he was a motivator in the Düsseldorf art scene, for example, as co-founder of the legendary artists' bar Creamcheese, and was represented in numerous exhibitions such as documenta 4 (with his "Zweileinwandkino" (two-screen cinema) in 1968) and STRATEGY: GET ARTS (Edinburgh, 1970). He received the Silver Federal Film Prize in 1977 for "As if by Beckett" and in 1978 for "The Garden of Eden" Mommartz stood for "the other cinema," beyond the mainstream, with the goal of establishing film as a means of artistic expression. In the 1970s, as part of the Düsseldorf Film Group, he campaigned for the institutional recognition of film in art. In 1975, he was appointed the first professor of film at the University o…

Directed

1. Railroad (1967) — Director
2. Way to the Neighbour (1968) — Director
3. Self Shots (1967) — Director
4. Markeneier (1967) — Director
5. Focus (1987) — Director
6. Social Sculpture (1969) — Director
7. The Garden of Eden (1977) — Director
8. Old Age Porn (1970) — Director
9. Danceloop (1967) — Director
10. Up / Down (1967) — Director
11. The Stairs (1967) — Director
12. As if by Beckett (1976) — Director
13. Dress (1985) — Director
14. Tango Through Germany (1981) — Director
15. Marble Always Remains Cool (1985) — Director
16. Spanish Crime Story (1970) — Director
17. Otto Piene's Studio Party (1966) — Director
18. Window to The Yard (1996) — Director
19. The Beautiful Sigmar (1971) — Director
20. The Fear at the Rhein (1974) — Director
21. The Finger (1967) — Director
22. Wall of Shadows (1993) — Director
23. Immatrikulation (1968) — Director
24. Overwhelmed (1969) — Director
25. 3 Glasses (1968) — Director
26. Die Schiller (1975) — Director
27. The Breath of Sheep (1970) — Director
28. Margret’s Film (2007) — Director
29. Haircut (1974) — Director
30. The Fair War 1525 (1975) — Director
31. Wing Flapping (1975) — Director
32. More Than Two (1978) — Director
33. Schattenkur (1979) — Director
34. Eddie and Lutz (1979) — Director
35. Film Group Düsseldorf - Sketch (1972) — Director
36. The City of Düsseldorf is Very Beautiful (1972) — Director
37. Monuments (1972) — Director
38. Most of My Friends Now Live in Berlin (1971) — Director
39. Inspection (1971) — Director
40. Solidarity of Tenents (1970) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Self Shots (1967)
2. Old Age Porn (1970)
3. The Stairs (1967)
4. Mambo (1975)
5. Filming Operation (1982)
6. Slow Waltz (1987)