Christian Genzel

Christian Genzel is a German writer and director who has been involved with numerous feature films, short films, music videos and documentaries. Genzel's first feature film was Die Muse (2011), a psychological thriller about a writer who kidnaps a young woman because he needs her as inspiration for his new book. The film starred Thomas Limpinsel and Henriette Müller and was produced by Berlin-based production company High5Films. Genzel's short films include the 2006 drama/comedy Schlaflos (2006) starring Maximilian Simonischek and Stefan Murr and the 2016 mystery/horror film Cinema dell' oscurità (2017), which was nominated for the 13th Street Shocking Short Award in 2017. In 2017, Genzel served as a jury member for the script development award of the city of Salzburg. In 2019, he directed Brezel Göring's play "Unbehagen in der Mittelstufe" for the stage. Most recently, Genzel has been working on the documentary Finding Planet Porno, a portrait of cult movie director Howard Ziehm and an era that brought immense social and moral change. Genzel originally studied English and American Studies at the University of Salzburg and wrote his M.A. thesis on the films of John Carpenter. He has held guest lectures on the practical aspects of filmmaking and given introductions to various movies. In 2014, Genzel curated a movie program at the University of Salzburg to focus on the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWI. In 2020, he served as the co-instructor of a class on "Films and Exile", again curating a program to explore the ideas of exile in cinema. Apart from his endeavors as a filmmaker, Genzel works as a journalist in the areas of film, music and computer games. His work has been published in/at Film & TV Kamera, Celluloid, 35 Millimeter, gmx.net, GameStar, AllMusic Guide, Neon Zombie, Salzburger Nachrichten and more. Genzel has conducted in-depth interviews with filmmakers like Steven E. de Souza, Rocky Morton, Mick Garris, William Lustig, Patrick Vollrath or Adrian Goiginger, musicians like CAN keyboarder/composer Irmin Schmidt, Papa Roach singer Jacoby Shaddix, Boney M. producer Frank Farian or Blondie drummer Clem Burke, game designers like Ralf Glau and Guido Henkel, and many others. He also writes on his own blog Wilsons Dachboden where he published the movie discussion podcast Lichtspielplatz (in German) and the movie interview podcast Talking Pictures (in English).