Hubertus Siegert

With his first feature length documentary, 2001's Berlin Babylon, Hubertus Siegert forged a contemporary document about the rebuilding of a unified Berlin - both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a director, he trusts the visual power inherent in the observation of people and places more so than interviews and information. Berlin Babylon was the opening film in the Panorama section at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival. In his 2005 documentary Klassenleben, twenty students are observed in a Berlin fifth grade class, a class in which both highly gifted children, as well as those who are badly disabled, are taught. The film avoids the perspective of the teacher and instead observes school daily life solely from the viewpoint of the children. In 2009 and 2013, Hubertus Siegert was as a segment director on the productions 24h Berlin and 24h Jerusalem. In the 24hour TV Berlin production, he portrays one day in the life of Kurt L., a murderer serving a twenty year sentence in Tegel Prison. This encounter with L. was the initial spark for the ideas behind Beyond Punishment. Beyond Punishmen is the first international documentary of S.U.M.O. Film. Hubertus Siegert is a Berlin film producer, author and director. He was born in 1959 in Duesseldorf. He studied history, art history, theater and film at the Free University Berlin, and also completed a degree in landscape architecture at Berlin Technical University. In 1992, he founded the production company S.U.M.O. Film and produced several short films in the following years. In 2014, Hubertus Siegert produced the music documentary Conduct! Every Move Counts (88 min). Goetz Schauder directed this film about the Frankfurt International Solti Competition for young conductors. Hubertus Siegert is a board member of the German Film Academy.