Maren Niemeyer

Maren Niemeyer (born 8 May 1964 in Bremen) is a German journalist, author and documentary film maker.

Life

Maren Niemeyer was born in the Hanseatic city of Bremen and took her A-levels at the Kippenberg Gymnasium. She studied journalism, German philology and film studies at the Sorbonne in Paris and Freien Universität Berlin from 1984 till 1990. At her dissertation, which she handed in only a couple of months after the fall of the Berlin wall in spring 1990, she studied the film history of the DDR and it's film company DEFA which had been largely unknown in West Germany.^[1]

While studying Niemeyer launched her journalistic career. In 1986 she began working as freelance journalist for the magazine Tempo in Hamburg, the Neue Ruhr Zeitung in Essen and for S-F-Beat, a broadcast magazine for youth people, of the broadcast station Sender Freies Berlin (SFB).

In May 1991 Maren Niemeyer travelled with a Arthur-F.-Burns scholarship to the USA. She stayed four months at the CBS branch WABI TV in Bangor, Maine and the public radio station WUSF in Tampa, Florida. Thereafter, between 1991 and 1994, she worked as Berlin and East Germany correspondent for the interview magazine O137 of the Pay TV broadcast station Premiere.

Since 1995 Maren Niemeyer works as editor, author and duty editor for various TV shows such as Willemsens Woche and Berlin-Mitte(ZDF), Kulturreport and Sabine Christiansen(ARD), Westart(WDR), Liebe Sünde(Pro 7), Kultur 21(DW-TV). From 2000 to 2006 she was in charge of the German-French ARTE woman-magazine LOLA^[2] and the German editorial department of the ARTE lifestyle-magazine CHIC. From 2007 to 2009 Niemeyer worked as editor in the head office of the German-French culture channel ARTE in Strasbourg and in the NDR ARTE editorial department in Hamburg, where she was responsible for various culture and documentary slots.

Maren Niemeyer was producer of various programmes for ARTE, SWR WDR and Deutsche Welle TV. Among other things she produced the much-noticed two-parter about the magic hippie trail „Die Karawane der Blumenkinder“(2008) in collaboration with Thomas Kufus and his production company Zero One Film. In 2009 Maren Niemeyer also produced a three-part series about German design „Faszination, Form, Farbe“, which was nominated for the German Economy Film Award 2009.

Maren Niemeyer was as one of the many episode directors in the ARTE/ RBB Production 24h Berlin. She also directed the documentary tetralogy Liebe ohne Grenzen ZDF/ARTE, for which she has been nominated with the Adolf-Grimme-Preis in 2010. In 2011 Maren Niemeyer implemented the documentary Planet Goethe – 60 Jahre Goethe-Institut for Goethe-Institut and DW-TV. Since December 2009 Niemeyer works as TV and radio broadcast representative of the Goethe-Institut, where she is responsible for the media co-operations worldwide.

Jury-Activities

In 2004 and 2010 Maren Niemeyer was voted into the Jury of the Deutschen Menschenrechts-Filmpreis and in 2006 she had been member of the documentary-Jury at the German Film festival Achtung Berlin.

Visits abroad

To realize her filming projects Maren Niemeyer travelled regularly to conflict and war zones. From 1999 to 2001 she did several tours to Kosovo, working on a TV report. Three years later she went to the Libanon holding a travel grant of the Internationalen Journalisten Programme. Further travels to various conflict and war zones followed, such as Afghanistan, Ramallah, Israel, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Nepal and Vietnam. From there she reporter for the ARD, DW TV and ARTE, where she served as free correspondent.

Voluntary Work

Since 2002 Maren Niemeyer is chairwomen of the association MaikaeferFlieg e.V., - a cultural bridge between children of the Kosovo and Germany.^[3] The association conceived the exhibition Mit anderen Augen, that shows children and teenager's perception of the Kosovo war. Since April 2000 the exhibition is touring through European and American cities. Accompanying to the exhibition Maren Niemeyer and Anna Berkenbusch published the trilingual book Ich denke oft an den Krieg, Mit anderen Augen – Kinder fotografieren den Krieg im Kosovo.

Within the scope of the project Mit anderen Augen in various lectures Niemeyer deals with the different visual perception of war pictures. Among others, she gave a lecture in the Edith-Ruß-Haus for media art in Oldenburg in 2004. The lecture was part of the Shock and Awe Kriegsbilder zwischen Dokumentation und Ideologie^[4] series of events. In her speech she discussed the issue if female war reporter shoot different pictures of war than her male colleagues and in what way the perception of war differs between men and women, using the example of the war photopgrapher Anja Niedringhaus.^[5]

Filmography

• Die Richardstrasse in Neukölln. Student Film Project, Germany 1987, 45 Min., Production: SFB Student Film Project
• Wie Deutschland sich lieben lernt – drei Ost-West Paare berichten. Documentary, Germany 1995, 30 Min., Production: SFB/WDR
• Das große Schweigen – Bordelle in Konzentrationslagern. Documentary, Germany, 1995, 30 Min., Director: Maren Niemeyer, Caroline von der Tann, Production: ARD/ORB
• Learys letzter Trip – Porträt des Drogen-Gurus TIMOTHY LEARY. Documentary, Germany, 1996, 55 Min., Director: Maren Niemeyer, Roger Willemsen, Production: ARTE/ZDF
• Der letzte Grieche – Portrait von Anthony Quinn. Documentary, Germany 1996, 30 Min,. with Roger Willemsen, Production: ORB
• Willemsens Zeitgenossen – Porträt des Fußball-Nationaltrainers BERTI VOGTS. Documentary, Germany, 1996, 30 Min., Production: ZDF
• Willemsens Zeitgenossen – Porträt der jüdischen Fotografin GISELE FREUND. Documentary, Germany, 1996, 30 Min., Production: ZDF
• Willemsens Zeitgenossen – Porträt des Musikproduzenten QUINCY JONES. Documentary, Germany, 1996, 30 Min., Production: ZDF
• Die neue Kunst des Kinderkriegens – Die GEO-Reportage "Weibsbilder". Documentary, Germany, 1999, 30 Min., Production: SWR/ ARTE
• Prinzessin für einen Tag, Schloss Hoppenrade und seine Geschichte(n). Documentary, Germany, 2001, 30 Min., Production: ORB
• 100 Prozent Schokolade, die Geschichte der Schweizer Schokoladenfabrik Cima Norma. Documentary, Germany, 2006, 60 Min., Production: ARTE
• High Sein, Frei sein, überall dabei sein – Auf dem Hippietrail nach Ibiza und Formenters. Documentary, Germany, 2007, 30 Min., Production: ARTE
• High Sein, Frei sein, überall dabei sein – Auf dem Hippietrail nach Kabul. Documentary,

Germany 2007, 30 Min., Production: ARTE

• Bilderbuch Deutschland – Spreewald. Documentary, Germany, 2007, 45 Min., Production: RBB/ ARD
• Die Karawane der Blumenkinder, Teil 1 - High sein, frei sein, Teil 2 Am Ziel der Träume. Documentary, Germany 2008, 2 x 45 Min., Production: WDR/ SWR^[6]
• Faszination Form Farbe – Design aus Deutschland, Produktdesign, Modedesign, Kommunikationsdesign. Documentary, Co-Director Sissi Hüetlin, Germany 2009, 3 x 26 Min, Production: DW-TV
• 24 Stunden Berlin – Ein Tag im Leben, Co-Director Dreh-Episode Gloria Viagra. Documentary, Germany 2009, 1 x 24 h,, Production: ARTE/ RBB
• Liebe ohne Grenzen, Co-Director Part 3 Stockholm and Leipzig, Part 4 Berlin and Wien, Dokusoap, Germany 2009, 4 x 26 Min, Production: ZDF/ ARTE
• Planet Goethe – 60 Jahre Goethe-Institut - Part 1 und 2. Documentary, Germany 2011, 60 Min., Production: Goethe-Institut/ DW-TV

Awards and Filmfestivals

• 1987: Die Richardstrasse in Neukölln, nominated for the Goldene Taube at the Documentary Film Festival Leipzig.
• 1995: Das große Schweigen – Bordelle in Konzentrationslagern, nominated for the Prix d'Europe.
• 2009: Faszination, Form, Farbe – Kommunikationsdesign aus Deutschland, nominated for the German Economy Film Award. The film also participated at the FIFA Film festival Montreal 2010.
• 2010: Liebe ohne Grenzen, nominated for the Adolf-Grimme-Preis.

External links

• http://www.niemeyer-film.de/index.html
• http://www.podcast.de/episode/2372903/Corsogespr%C3%A4ch_mit_Maren_Niemeyer,_Regisseurin_von_Planet_Goethe
• http://www.maikaeferflieg.de/
• http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article589742/Wie_die_DDR_im_Burgfrieden_unterging.html
• http://www.welt.de/print-welt/article496169/Wer_war_Rachel_Corrie.html

References

1. ^ - defa.de. In: defa.de. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
2. ^ - taz.de. In: taz.de. Retrieved on 2011-09-30.
3. ^ Mit anderen Augen – Zeichnungen & Fotos von Kindern aus dem Kosovo. In: maikaeferflieg.de. Retrieved on 2011-09-30.
4. ^ Archiv - Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst. In: edith-russ-haus.de. Retrieved on 2011-09-30.
5. ^ Archiv - oldenburg.de. In: oldenburg.de. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.
6. ^ - tagesspiegel.de. In: tagesspiegel.de. Retrieved on 2011-10-04.

Persondata
Name	Niemeyer, Maren
Alternative names
Short description	German Journalist, Author and Documentary Filmmaker
Date of birth	8 May 1964
Place of birth	Bremen, Germany
Date of death
Place of death