Departures of note

Regina Ziegler was a pioneering German film and television producer whose career spanned five decades. Born in March 1944 in Quedlinburg, she fled with her family to the Weserbergland region at the end of the Second World War. After a brief law studies stint and training as an economics interpreter, she joined the broadcaster Sender Freies Berlin as a production assistant in 1965.

In 1973, at the age of 29, she founded her own production company. Her first feature film, Ich dachte, ich wäre tot, received the Federal Film Prize and marked the beginning of a long collaboration with director Wolf Gremm, her later husband, with whom she made films including Die Brüder (1976) and Fabian (1980).

Over her career she produced more than 500 works, among them the acclaimed ARD series Weissensee and the musical film Ich war noch niemals in New York. Her productions won numerous awards: Malou (1981) took the FIPRESCI prize at Cannes, November Days received the Adolf Grimme Prize, and two of her films were nominated for the Oscar. In 2016 she received a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was honored with the honorary prize of the German Film Award for outstanding services to German cinema.