Manfred Durniok (1934 - 2003)
Manfred Durniok, 68, author, producer, director, photographer and world citizen, died March 7 in Berlin of a heart attack. Best known as the producer of Istvan Szabo’s Mephisto, starring Klaus Maria Brandauer, it was awarded in 1981 the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film. He produced and coproduced more than 600 films over a span of 45 years.
Durniok was particularly proud of being named in 2000 an Honorary Citizen of the City of Peking on the occasion of his 100th visit to China, the first non-Asian to be so honored. Officially appointed by the Berlin Senate as Special Envoy to the Berlin-Beijing City Partnership, he initiated the construction of the Chinese Garden in Berlin-Marzahn, opened in 2000 and under expansion ever since. He was personally invited to Shanghai by the Chinese government for the launching last December 31 of the Transrapid between Pudong Airport and Shanghai Central Station. (See photo, courtesy Durniok.) In 1999, the Federal Republic of Germany honored him with a First-Class Bundesverdienstkreuz for his achievements as filmmaker and his efforts towards international understanding. And in 2002 the American Cinema Foundation in Los Angeles singled him out especially for a Freedom Film Award.
From his very first film, People at Bus Stops (1957), an autodidactic documentary about Berliners going to and from work, Manfred Durniok sought as filmmaker, photographer and author of eight books to portray human sentiments and longings as he saw and felt them. Although educated in law at Harvard University (class of 1959), his immediate success as a documentary filmmaker opened the door to television commissioners. Up to the end of the 1980’s he produced and directed 80 films for and about Berlin alone, including coproductions with East Germany, as well as cofinancing numerous productions in Eastern Europe. A familiar face at international film festivals, his Malatesta (1970), directed by Peter Lilienthal, competed at Cannes. Working with directors from Central and Eastern Europe, he produced Krzysztof Zanussi’s The Catamount Killing (1973), Istvan Szabo’s Mephisto (1980) and Colonel Redl (1983), Filip Bajon’s The Consul (1981), Frank Beyer’s The Last U-Boat (1990), Marta Meszaros’s Daughters of Luck (1999), and Arvo Iho’s Heart of the Bear (2002), among others.
Durniok’s first trip to China was in 1971. Shortly thereafter, he produced and directed the first documentation for German television shot in the Peoples Republic of China, Meeting Place Peking (1974). More of the same was to follow: Dynasty of Silk and Lacquer (1978), Greetings from China (1979), and Images of China (1988), to name just a few. In 1996, he realized a project he had been dreaming of for well over a decade: the screen adaptation of Vicki Baum’s novel Hotel Shanghai, directed by Peter Patzak with a cast of 4,000. Manfred Durniok’s last project is the story of German master spy Richard Sorge (1895-1944), a German communist who became a Communist Party member in 1919 and was commissioned by the Soviet Union to work as an undercover spy in the Far East. In May of 1941, Sorge informed Moscow a day in advance of the German invasion, a news report the Soviet leadership scarcely believed. Five months later, Sorge was arrested in Tokyo and hanged in 1944. Durniok had spent the better part of a decade raising the funds to get this German-Japanese coproduction off the ground. Japanese director Masahiro Shinoda, who had previously directed The Dancer (1988) under Manfred Durniok, shot Richard Sorge The Spy of the Century in Germany, Japan, China, and the Soviet Union. On April 2, the film premiered in Tokyo to public and critical acclaim. Adieu, Manfred, good friend and colleague. You will be dearly missed.
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