Peter Lilienthal

Peter Lilienthal (1927 to 2023) was a German film director, writer, actor and producer, most associated with the liberal strand of New German Cinema in the 1970s. As a child he emigrated with his parents in 1939 to Montevideo, Uruguay, to escape the Nazis, and he returned to Germany in 1956 to attend film school. In the 1960s and 1970s he was among the directors who focused on social criticism, alongside Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. His films include Malatesta (1970), shown at the Cannes Film Festival, Calm Prevails Over the Country (1975), and David (1979), which won the Golden Bear at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival; he also directed Joe Pesci in Dear Mr. Wonderful (1982). From 1985 to 1996 he was the first director of the department of film and media art at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2000 and died in Munich in 2023.