Baran bo Odar may not be a household name in the United States, but that’s set to change with his latest series, Enemy of the State, airing on Fox this summer. In Germany, however, the show’s creator and star have a combined list of credits that’s nothing short of impressive. He may be best known for directing the 2015 feature film Who Am I – No System Is Safe, which rose to #1 at the German box office and earned him a Best Screenplay nomination from the German Film Awards. So who exactly is Baran bo OdarWho is Baran bo Odar A Look at the Life and Work of the Notorious German Director
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Birth
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Bo Odar had a storied childhood. His mother worked as a psychologist in North Korea during the 70s and his father was an engineer who helped build power plants for both the United States and Russia before defecting to West Germany with his family when Bo Odar was just four years old. They lived in Düsseldorf where he attended middle school before dropping out of high school at 16 to travel around Europe. Who is Baran bo Odar A Look at the Life and Work of the Notorious German Director
Bio
Baran bo Odar is a German film and television director, best known for his action thriller films, such as Who Am I – No System Is Safe and The Silence.
Born in West Berlin to Armenian immigrants from Turkey in 1973, he graduated with a degree in Psychology from Universität Potsdam before training as an actor at Otto Falckenberg School of Acting.
Family
Baran was born in 1971 in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. His father was an architect and his mother an art historian. He grew up in Lindau am Bodensee. His siblings are Julia, Daniel, Matthias and Marion.
Physical info
Baran was born in 1968. He grew up in a family of artists. His father, Bernhard, was a photographer and his mother, Rosemarie, a ceramicist. His sister Angela practiced sculpture from 1984 to 1992 as well as painting from 1996 to 2004. She went on to be an art historian who also had an interest in archeology and ethnology from 1997 onwards. Who is Baran bo Odar A Look at the Life and Work of the Notorious German Director
Career
Baran bo Odar started out as a small-time screenwriter for TV. However, he made a name for himself in 2010 with his debut feature film Who Am I – No System Is Safe, which landed him two nominations at the 2015 German Film Awards, including Best Screenplay and Best Fiction Feature Film.
Awards
Born in Wuppertal, Germany, baran bo Odar first made a name for himself with his short film The Last Level. From there he went on to make several different series that have had varying degrees of success. His most popular work so far has been Who Am I-No System Is Safe which was a box office success in Germany, netting €4 million domestically, nearly double what it cost to make.
Net worth
Baran bo Odar, while still in his teens, wrote and directed his first film. His full-length debut came with Uwe Boll’s 1990 children’s movie Fieber, fühlt sich an wie 100 (Fever Feels Like 100). He went on to work for a number of other directors, including Brian De Palma on The Bonfire of the Vanities and Phillip Noyce on Patriot Games.
sweetest time
Baran, born in Heidelberg, Germany on September 7th 1976, came to prominence with his debut feature film, Who Am I – No System Is Safe. It had been in post-production for two years before it finally hit theatres in 2015. The film received very positive reviews all around, in Germany as well as internationally.
Originally an economics student, he left university because he wanted to pursue a career as a director.
first love
Baran bo Odar, born 1974 in Hildesheim, is a German film director. In 2011 he won Best Fiction Feature Film at Cannes for his movie Who Am I – No System Is Safe (original title: Der Mann ohne Nerven). This captivating story about Timo Peltzer, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, explores some of the darkest corners of human nature with surprising warmth.
first success
Baran bo Odar has been making some important moves lately. The acclaimed director who famously had his breakout with Who Am I – No System Is Safe, has signed on to direct Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep for Warner Bros. Furthermore, in a bit of a coup, he’s been tapped by the illustrious Martin Scorsese to be an executive producer on HBO’s upcoming crime drama Boardwalk Empire set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City.
dearest person
Baran has been fortunate to work with some of the biggest names in Hollywood including acclaimed directors Steven Spielberg, James Gray, Bryan Singer, Barry Levinson, Terrence Malick.
But now he’s risen to prominence with his first feature film Who Am I – No System Is Safe which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015. Odar’s film was nominated for a German Film Award for Best Fiction Feature Film and Best Screenplay in 2015.
Early life
Baran bo Odar was born in 1975 in Gera, East Germany. His mother was a teacher and his father an entrepreneur. Growing up in the former East Germany, he experienced life under communist rule until 1989 when Communism collapsed. After this happened, he attended college for film studies and eventually became a student filmmaker.
Career (2004-present)
In 2004, he directed his first film called drei ??? und der schwarze Rabe. He quickly followed this up with Es war einmal in Deutschland. In 2014, he was on a jury for the International Emmy Awards. This year he has been nominated for his work as a director on No System Is Safe which follows a secret agent trying to get back into her life after years of undercover work in Chechnya.
Awards
Baran’s breakout success came in 2009 when he wrote and directed Who Am I – No System Is Safe, a drama-thriller based on John le Carré’s The Looking Glass War. Who Am I was nominated for six German Film Awards, winning four including Best Fiction Feature Film, Best Screenplay and Best Editing. Additionally, it has won three awards from The Robert Award as well as other prizes from festivals such as Munich International Festival of Films on Art, Melbourne International Film Festival.
Q.&A.
Why are you directing this show, have you always wanted to be a director?
When I was in school, it was clear to me that directing was my calling. It’s what I need to do. But getting a film made in Germany can take forever—several years, sometimes even more than 10 years—and it can cost more than $3 million Euros. Who Am I – No System is Safe didn’t follow traditional channels, because that would not have been possible with such limited resources.
Is 1899 connected to darkness?
The horror genre was still not widely recognized as such when director Josef von Sternberg released ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ in 1920. However, this macabre, eerie, suspenseful thriller – widely considered the first true horror film – served as a template for future cinematic psychological dramas.
Who created Dark?
Born in 1981, Baran bo Odar began his career by directing an episode of the German TV crime drama Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei. He then directed a segment for Russian Dolls (aka) Goodnight Friend, a 2004 episodic film composed of six short films from various directors who have all won prizes at film festivals. The first full-length feature he directed was Who Am I – No System is Safe.
Who is the writer of Dark?
Baran bo Odar directed the hugely successful first episode of Dark, an internationally popular Netflix series. The show has inspired critical praise from around the world. On a more personal note, he made his directorial debut in 2007 with Who Am I-No System Is Safe, a drama based on true events which was praised for its well-crafted script and strong cast performances. After viewing that film you can see why he might be considered something of a dark horse in the filmmaking world-and for good reason!
Is 1899 a true story?
While much of Who Am I – No System is Safe (aka, Der Fremde im Spiegel) might be exaggerated or even manufactured, it still begs a fundamental question: How do we know who anyone really is? To answer this question, audiences might need to look back as far as director Baran bo Odar’s earliest days.