Dave Lojek

Born in 1975 in East-Berlin to German parents, producer-director Dave Lojek loves filmmaking very much. He exhales peaceful moving images because he was socialized in front of the television and in cinemas. At international short film festivals he remains one of the most often selected and awarded cinema directors of his generation worldwide with more than 1620 screenings of its distributions in over 65 countries. Dave Lojek celebrates his passion in the genres of comedy, fantasy, science fiction, romance, satire, poetry and experiment. He also produces dramas, portraits, art films, reports as well as documentaries, parodies and music videos, depending on his mood, available talent and resources. In addition to cinemas, Dave constantly broadcasts his art on television and the Internet for millions of eyes. Growing up in a repressive socialist regime but shielded from its darker implications by a loving family, Dave was lucky to witness the fall of the Berlin Wall as teenager first hand. With the collapse of the dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the reunification of Germany, the whole continent of Europe suddenly became available for exploration and travels. Dave's family visited many countries of Northern and Western Europe in the 1990s, after having exhausted the possibilities to see Eastern Europe in the 1980s. This inclination and curiosity for other cultures and languages might have set the course for young Dave Lojek's life, which now revolves around travel and creation of movies on his continent. Schools were natural abodes for growing Dave Lojek, before cinema became the preferred habitat of his prime and later life. In both institutions people sit in rows in front of a central attention magnet, either teacher or screen. Dave Lojek attended public schools in Berlin with considerable prowess until he was ready to go to university in 1995. Consequently, his films magnetize and charm audiences in hundreds of cities. Mr. Lojek graduated with his Master's degree in English / American Studies and Cultural Studies from Humboldt University in his hometown Berlin with excellent grades in 2004. Several of his academic papers, including his thesis, dealt with film, literature, post-modernity, and the rise of the cybernetic age. A digital native himself, Lojek embodies the pictorial turn and shift of the filmmaking culture from analog to digital tools and media. Before his film career, Dave wrote around 400 poems, attended creative writing courses as participant and teacher. He immersed himself in every kind of sea and fictional world, devouring literature and all kinds of games. His artistic gifts were discovered by German poetry tutor Eva Schönewerk in 1994 in a youth recreation facility in Berlin. In his own way, Lojek combines his love of travel with art and the edifying. While many fellow artists draw their inspiration and strength from personal traumas, the appeal of Dave Lojek's films is informed by his intimate knowledge of Europe before and after the victory of global capitalism. His movies depict ethereal postmodern themes of infinite loops of quotes and palimpsest in the visual language, defying the concept of originality by imitation and recombination, albeit seeming minimalist and concrete. They draw on fairy tales, myths, and all of the filmic canon alike. Director Lojek often delegates the task of screenwriting to the appropriate talents. As an independent producer and director at Apeiron Films in Berlin, Dave Lojek created 171 films in the world's largest cinema movement (the Kino Community) in 26 cities in 12 European countries by 2020. A few of these films, such as Das sprichwörtliche Glück (2016), Arachne (2017), Rêve General (2016) and Kabaret Freeze (2013) had gifted co-directors. Most of the time Dave edits his creations himself and occasionally operates the camera. Thus his grasp of the craft of cinema comes from more than two decades of practical training on his own film sets and those of his peers. Among his most loyal crew members he counts award-winning composer Mirko Rizzello, boom operator and encoding expert Patrick Düren, actors Angela Jehring, Joseph Stacey and Emma Chaibedra, cinematographer Marco Griffini, screenwriters Verena Schulemann, Margie Lazou, Anthony Straeger, and production manager Karolina Grzybowska. In terms of content, Dave's poetic films deal with magic, love, death, friendship, loneliness, artists, oddities, escapism, mythology and ordinary life. Based on the Homo-Ludens-principle, Dave clearly focuses his often-cheerful work on the universal and timeless. He calls his motivation for filming intrinsic. While most fictional movies in the world center around violence, family, and conflict, Dave's films keep circumventing these narrative rules and find their niche in mundane and quirky moments. Master Lojek has been organizing, moderating, and curating monthly open short film evenings in Germany's oldest cinema (Moviemento Kreuzberg) since 2007. Directors and their crews keep attending these often sold-out screenings, celebrating over 3000 premieres and audience tests, to gain feedback for artistic growth. Exposure to countless more short films of all sizes and shapes at festivals and online gave rise to a specific philosophy of non-commercial artistic visual and auditory expression, which is best personified in the biography of Dave Lojek. He keeps breaking his own audience award records with a delightful non-chalance. The ten-day international KinoKabaret (practical film workshop) of his initiative KinoBerlino forms the climax and creative nexus of every year in Berlin for the short film community. In autumn between 70 and 200 creative minds from 25 nations with a plethora of talents, ambitions and experiences come together in spontaneous film teams to evolve their works from idea to cinema premiere under extreme time pressure with minimal gear. Dave Lojek learned his craft in 101 of these film workshops in Europe as autodidact, directing and writing scripts, as well as filming, editing, advising, acting, planning or recording sound for colleagues. Dave counseled many infected "Kinoïtes" on setting up their own KinoKabarets. He often traveled to those cities and shot something new, incessantly enriching his portfolio with fresh stories. He also teaches the art of cinema in practical film courses. Master Lojek is living proof that you don't need to attend conventional costly film schools to develop a portfolio or your own style, if you find other means and collaborate with like-minded groups and individuals. While many of Mr. Lojeks cinema creations could be enjoyed at short film festival behemoths such as interfilm Berlin, Filmfest Dresden, International Short Film Festival Hamburg, Biberacher Filmfestspiele, and Independent Days Karlsruhe, most of his over 211 laurels, awards, diplomas, and accolades were shipped from international audience pleasers such as Unprecedented Cinema Tallinn and World Movie Contest of Union Internationale du Cinema (UNICA). Listing all of the over 1620 screenings planet-wide would burst this article. Refer to the filmography on Master Lojek's homepage for the complete and updated ever-growing list of excellence. Among the most prestigious awards Dave Lojek's films have won are the two OBELISKs (Main Prizes) of the German National Film Festival (Deutsche Filmfestspiele) in 2016 for Das sprichwörtliche Glück (2016) and in 2017 for Sama Slodycz (2016). Furthermore he displays a considerable collection of trophies, medals, and diplomas from Landesfilmfestival Berlin / Brandenburg, Kurzfilmfestival Schrobenhausen and hundreds more on his shelves at home. Moreover, Dave Lojek works as a distributor for fellow directors, to help their movies succeed and shine at international short film festivals. Among those lucky specimen to collaborated with Mr. Lojek in his capacity as exposure exploder were Rakel Sosa, Linda Hecquet, Dieter Primig, Maxime Billon, Dieter Leitner as well as Gianluca Pistoia and Marvin Meiendresch. Since 2012 Dave Lojek has been active as president of the Video- and Film Association Berlin / Brandenburg e.V., which is also a member of the Federal Association of German Film Authors (BDFA). He coordinates film festivals and film clubs across generations gaps. In addition, Mr. Lojek sat on juries of events such as Lublin Film Festival and Videomedeja Novi Sad, thus learning the craft of decision making from the perspective of a juror. He networks with gifted talents across Europe, and inspires members of his teams to study film. Among the alumni of the annual KinoBerlino film workshops (hosted by Dave Lojek) are talents such as cinematographers Mercedes Ortego Gonzalez, Jana Pape, Maxime Billon, Christine Lüdge and Antje Heidemann, directors Marvin Meiendresch, George Varsimashvili, Patrick Forian, Ankit Anand, and Charles Brepsant; actresses such as Shirly Lev, Solomia Kushnir, Helen Rekkor, Agata Pisiewicz, and Natalia Giro; as well as composers Mirko Rizzello, My Geek and Mercedes Ortego Gonzalez. Dave's Apeiron Films' and KinoBerlino productions have been broadcast ca. 3 times a week on German television since 2008 (around 12,000 times so far). The works are presented online and have been viewed over 2 million times. Dave Lojek is too busy to be a regular contributor to imdb.com or Wikipedia or Film Portal or Crew-United to perpetuate himself there. When Dave Lojek is not filming, editing, producing, representing, networking, broadcasting, distributing, teaching, writing, preparing, pondering or probing, he watches press screenings of new feature films. Then the jack-of-all-trades sometimes types a review or festival article for the magazine Film Report of which he is editor-in-chief. He satirizes collecting filmographies with self-irony. A total of 211 prices, medals, certificates, and awards for the following Apeiron Films distributions and co-productions have been received by 2020, but many of these films and festivals are sadly absent from the imdb lists, because they are in Europe or ephemeral: Arachne (2017), Keeper (2018), Fainting Flicker (2016), Flussaufwärts (2010), Focus Pocus (2013), Fortune Flies (2015), Hek Tick Tack (2013), The Witches & The Lovers, I Came from the Future (2018), The Last Supper (2018), Marie's Voice, The Tenant, Paradise Weir, Paradise Beach (2013), Perspective (2010), The Princess Strikes Back (2014), Psychic Sue (2013), Sama Slodycz (2016), Rêve General (2016), Serendipity (2009), Sick City, Snitch (2018), Das sprichwörtliche Glück (2016), Two Too Odd (2012), EinTagsFliege(n) (2019).