- Maren Ade was born in Karlsruhe on 12 December 1976 to a couple of teachers.She studied cinema at Munich's Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film. As of 2001 she co-founded, together with Janine Jackowski, a fellow graduate from HFF, the "Komplizen" film company. It is through Komplizen that Maren would later co-produce, among others, "Arabian Nights", Miguel Gomes' masterpiece. After two shorts in 2000 and 2001 made under the auspices of her film school, she co-produced, wrote and and directed Der Wald vor lauter Bäumen (2003), her first feature. A grueling drama about the difficult beginnings of a new teacher, the movie impressed both audiences and critics. Incidentally, it is of interest to specify that its school scenes were entirely shot within the walls of the educational institution where her mother was teaching at the time. This promising effort was followed six years later by Everyone Else (2009), which although taking place in a totally different setting (the Sardinian seaside in the glory of Summer) also concerns characters unsure of themselves. A taut drama as well, it revolves around two holiday making newly married couples and describes in a Roman Polanski-like manner the wicked relationships they share. But her greatest success came in 2015 and 2016 with Toni Erdmann (2016), an offbeat comedy with a philosophical approach, which enthused the festival-goers at Cannes, allegedly making them "roar with laughter", and later making unexpected profit in art houses throughout the world. And it is true that a father playing dirty tricks on his daughter (meant to make her realize she is wasting her life) is no ordinary entertainment. As a matter of fact, after only three full-length movies to her credit, Maren Ade has become a name that counts in today's German cinema.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Guy Bellinger
- SpouseUlrich Köhler (2 children)
- Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 70th Cannes International Film Festival in 2017.
- Her name is pronounced MAR-in AH-day.
- Member of the 'Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) since 2016.
- She started making amateur films with a Hi-8 camcorder when she was a teenager. Later she attended the University of Television and Film in Munich.
- Married to director Ulrich Köhler.
- The premiere is the toughest thing for every filmmaker, not only because you are afraid if everything will work out technically, but also because in some way you have to say goodbye to your film, and it can feel like you're thrown out of an airplane. [2016]
- [on presenting Toni Erdmann (2016) in Cannes] On last Monday I was still doing the [movie's sound] mix, and on Tuesday I was seeing the final version, and on Wednesday I went shopping to buy a dress. I bought a suit. And then I came here and showed the film. So it was really, really crazy, and very, very nice. [2016]
- [on editing Toni Erdmann (2016)] And almost six weeks after I had the feeling it was finished, the discussion about the length came up and up and up. And I said, "OK, I have to be 100 percent sure. Let me try everything." I took out lots of things, but I put everything back, except maybe 10 seconds. Because when I took things out, the film felt longer. It was strange sometimes. I have to make excuses for the length, but it really lost when you made it shorter. [2016]
- [on the reception of Toni Erdmann (2016)] I really didn't expect that so many people would like it. [With] my previous two films, maybe a bit more people liked them than didn't like them, but there were always people who said, "I don't like those films." With this one, I was expecting people to say, "No, it's too long, I don't like that woman..." I was expecting many more critics. [2016]
- [press conference for Toni Erdmann (2016) at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival] I had the wish for a long time to make something about this family topic - about the roles everybody played, about all these rituals, things that repeat themselves again and again, and to have on the other side - you had to tell something about the wish to break out of this, to maybe start from zero. So I found this father, this joker, who brought in with Toni the possibility to tell this thing. I found out during writing that the father-daughter thing is a very emotional topic, this children-parents thing.....there's a lot of secret aggression, secret longing, secret fears in that - I could use that very well.
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