Biography
Jonatan Karl Dieter Briel (June 9, 1942 – December 26, 1988) was a German film director, screenwriter, and actor, born in Bodenwerder, Lower Saxony, and raised in Holzminden. He is best known as a specialist of the literary biographical film, with a body of work centered on 19th-century German poets and dramatists — primarily Heinrich von Kleist, Christian Friedrich Hebbel, and Friedrich Hölderlin. After completing an administrative apprenticeship (1959–1962), Briel founded the Youth Film Studio of Holzminden in 1962. He moved to West Berlin in 1965, where he became an assistant to director Peter Lilienthal before being admitted to the newly founded Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) in 1966. There he studied under Wolfgang Staudte and made his debut short Der 300ste Geburtstag (1967). His graduation film Wie zwei fröhliche Luftschiffer (1969), a reconstruction of Heinrich von Kleist's double suicide, won the jury prize at the Mannheim International Film Festival and was selected for the Locarno Film Festival in 1970, attracting international critical attention. From 1970, Briel worked as an independent filmmaker with the Sender Freies Berlin (SFB). He developed a s…
Directed
- A Man Aglow (1975) — Director
- Jonatan Briel's Lenz – A German Physiognomy (1971) — Director
- Like Two Merry Aeronauts (1969) — Director
- Berlin - Berlin - Berlin — Director
- The 300th Birthday (1967) — Director
- Weighed and Found Too Heavy (1970) — Director
- Berlin, Berlin, Berlin (1970) — Director
- Tago Mago (1971) — Director
- A Quite Strange Case of Love (1973) — Director
- Das Geheimnis (1979) — Director
- Your Humble Servant Scardanelli (1982) — Director
- The Stars That Smile Upon Their Cottage (1981) — Director
- The Attempt to Sing a Song (1982) — Director
- Elli, SO 36 (1984) — Director
- Katja (1985) — Director
- As Long As You Love Me, I Cannot Go Wrong (1985) — Director
- Kleist Project Berlin (1987) — Director
