"The Lives of Others" and Contemporary German Film

This volume will offer the first book-length academic investigation of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others (2006). The aim of this edited collection is twofold. On the one hand, it will offer new insight into one of the most successful German films of the past two decades placing The Lives of Others within its wider historical, political, aesthetic and industrial context. On the other, it will offer this group of scholars, which includes many of the leading international figures in the field, opportunity to make a series of interventions on the state of contemporary German film and German film studies.

The Lives of Others, studied on numerous undergraduate and graduate courses around the world on a variety of German and Film Studies programmes, is particularly popular in the English-speaking world. The broad-ranging contextual approach of the volume will maximise its potential as a teaching aid. It will, however, also be essential reading for all scholars of contemporary German film due to the standing of the people involved in this project, this group of leading international scholars using Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film as a case study for a series of broader interventions on the state of German film. Finally, given the popular international success of the film, the volume will also potentially be read by a non-academic audience interested in European cinema.