Carl Junghans

Carl Junghans (1897, Dresden – 1984, Munich), German director, was a movie theater pianist at the tender age of 12. At 20 he volunteered for the front, returning wounded to his hometown of Dresden. He made a living at a wide variety of jobs, becoming a journalist and dramaturge for the theater, but he eventually worked his way up to revered film editor.

In 1925 he wrote the script for a social drama set among the proletariat, the tragic story of a laundress and her brutal husband, but he couldn't find a producer, not even in the leftist circles of which he was a part. In the end, Czech filmmakers helped him shoot the silent film Such Is Life during the advent of the sound era. Junghans was later active as a screenwriter, editor, and director. In 1939 he fled the Nazis through Paris to the United States where he worked as a photographer. He returned to Germany in 1963, settled in Munich, and was highly creative even as a retiree.

MFF Karlovy Vary