Christian Petzold
Christian Petzold (born 1960) is a German director and screenwriter, a leading figure of the so-called Berlin School. He studied at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin under Hartmut Bitomsky and Harun Farocki, whose essayistic interest in history and image he carried into his own work. His features are spare, controlled, and frequently haunted — by the Cold War, by Nazi-era guilt, by ghosts of older film genres — and built around exceptional performances from a recurring company of actors. His acclaimed films include Yella, Jerichow, Barbara, Phoenix, Transit, Undine, and Afire.