Known For
Directing
Born
Mar 06, 1934
Died
Jul 26, 2025
Place of Birth
Erkelenz, Germany
Credits
57 titles
Lutz Mommartz
Biography
For over five decades, experimental filmmaker Lutz Mommartz shaped the German film and art scene with a radically different understanding of film. Since the 1960s, he was active in Düsseldorf as a filmmaker and artist, and his work raised key questions about the authenticity of film and its relationship with the audience. He achieved his international breakthrough in 1967 at the Knokke Festival, when his film "Self-Shots" won an award. Parallel to his work as a municipal official, he was a motivator in the Düsseldorf art scene, for example, as co-founder of the legendary artists' bar Creamcheese, and was represented in numerous exhibitions such as documenta 4 (with his "Zweileinwandkino" (two-screen cinema) in 1968) and STRATEGY: GET ARTS (Edinburgh, 1970). He received the Silver Federal Film Prize in 1977 for "As if by Beckett" and in 1978 for "The Garden of Eden" Mommartz stood for "the other cinema," beyond the mainstream, with the goal of establishing film as a means of artistic expression. In the 1970s, as part of the Düsseldorf Film Group, he campaigned for the institutional recognition of film in art. In 1975, he was appointed the first professor of film at the University of Fine Arts Münster (then an outpost of the Düsseldorf Art Academy) and headed the film class until 1999. In 2020, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf dedicated a retrospective to Mommartz's work. His works were most recently exhibited at the ZKM Karlsruhe and the Julia Stoschek Foundation. Lutz Mommartz is remembered as a pioneer of artistic film—uncomfortable, experimental, and ahead of his time.
Known For
Filmography
Margret’s Film
Director
Window to The Yard
Director
Painting
Director
Wall of Shadows
Writer
Fear Under the Stars
Director
Four Little Pieces
Director
Slow Waltz
Focus
Director
The Last Smoke
Director
Marble Always Remains Cool
Director
Dress
Director
Every Human is A Table, Only I Am A Chair
Director
Transit to Berlin
Director
Filming Operation
Tango Through Germany
Director
Schattenkur
Director
Eddie and Lutz
Director
More Than Two
Director
The Garden of Eden
Director
As if by Beckett
Director
Mambo
Die Schiller
Director
Wing Flapping
Director
The Fair War 1525
Director
The Fear at the Rhein
Director
Haircut
Director
Monuments
Director
The City of Düsseldorf is Very Beautiful
Director
Film Group Düsseldorf - Sketch
Director
Inspection
Director
Most of My Friends Now Live in Berlin
Director
The Aggressive Brown Water Inside the Tubes of the Professors
Director
The Beautiful Sigmar
Director
Solidarity of Tenents
Director
Spanish Crime Story
Director
Old Age Porn
The Breath of Sheep
Director
Görreskeller und JETZT - Köln
Director
Spaniards Meeting in Essen
Director
Social Sculpture
Director
Overwhelmed
Director
Teenage Art
Director
Wählt ADF
Director
400 m IFF
Director
Way to the Neighbour
Director
3 Glasses
Director
Immatrikulation
Director
Two-Screen Cinema
Director
Markeneier
Director
Railroad
Director