Jürgen Jürges

Jürgen Jürges was born in Hanover in 1940 and is one of Germany’s leading cameramen. After graduating from the professional photographic college in Berlin, his career began with voluntary work for Hansjürgen Pohland’s film production company “art film GmbH”. Two years later, he began to work on feature films by well-known directors in German cinema history. In 1965 Volker Schlöndorff hired him initially as assistant cameraman for the film ‘Young Törless’ and he was subsequently responsible for camera direction on ‘Degree of Murder’. In the 1970s Jürges also applied his stylistically versatile skills to several films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, as cameraman for a series of classics including ‘Fear Eats the Soul’ (1974), ‘Fear of Fear’ (1975) and ‘Satan’s Brew’ (1976). Other influential representatives of the New German Cinema with whom Jürges collaborated include Roland Klick, Wim Wenders and Norbert Kückelmann. International film productions on which he is credited include Michael Haneke’s ‘Funny Games’ and ‘Code Unknown’ as well as the ‘DAU’ series by the Russian film-maker Ilya Khrzhanovsky that is made up of several films and series.

Jürges can look back on a successful creative career in which his camerawork has won him numerous awards, including the German Camera Prize on several occasions, the German Film Prize twice and, most recently for his camera work in Khrzhanovsky’s ‘DAU. Natasha’, the Silver Bear at the 70th Berlinale in the category “Outstanding Artistic Contribution”.