Michael Ballhaus, cinematographer and director of photography, began to work with the German national TV station Südwestfunk in 1960 and already then collaborated with such early exponents of the New German Film as director-authors Peter Lilienthal, Ulrich Schamoni, and Herbert Vesely. His 1970 encounter with Rainer Werner Fassbinder led to their first collaboration in the feature film WHITY and ended in 1978 with their 16th joint movie, the internationally successful THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN. In 1982, he met John Sayles in New York and shot his first feature film, BABY IT’S YOU. In 1985 he began to work exclusively in the USA. His work there includes nine productions with Martin Scorsese as his director of photography. The list of directors Michael Ballhaus worked with in the US includes such names as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Kloves, Barry Levinson, Paul Newman, Mike Nichols, Wolfgang Petersen, Robert Redford, and Volker Schlöndorff. This work brought him three Oscar nominations. In 2007, the “American Society of Cinematographers” bestowed its prestigious trophy upon him for lifetime achievement. The same year he returned to his birthplace, Berlin.

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