Ludger Pfanz
CURRICULUM VITAE LUDGER PFANZ SUMMARY
Filmmaker, dramaturge, media scientist and innovation researcher with over 30 years of international experience in the development, production and evaluation of audiovisual content. As a university lecturer, festival director and EU project coordinator, he combines creative excellence with scientific analysis and technological innovation.
His work focuses on dramaturgy and storytelling (classical and experimental), transmedia and immersive narrative forms (XR, VR, AR, AI) and the development of sustainable and diverse narratives for the future. He is the author of the three-volume "Story Trilogy" (2024–2025), a standard work on the theory and practice of storytelling in the 21st century.
Pfanz has initiated numerous international projects, including as coordinator of the EU-funded "Parallax" project and as founder of the Expanded 3D Cinema Lab and the Future Design Institute e.V.. He is an EAVE alumnus, was a lecturer in the EU screenwriting programme SOURCES, and has collaborated with broadcasters and institutions such as ARTE, ARD, SWR, NDR, WDR, MFG, LIFE, and the EU.
He has served as a jury member and speaker at international festivals and conferences (including the Beijing VR Conference and the Harare Women's Film Festival) and is considered a thought leader for combining creativity, media ethics, diversity and technological innovation.
BIOGRAPHY LUDGER PFANZ
Ludger Pfanz was born in Schopfloch (Middle Franconia) in 1958. Already as a teenager, he was involved in art and culture and co-founded the Feuchtwangen Youth and Cultural Centre in 1972.
After moving to Berlin, he studied theatre and literature at the Free University. During this time, he initiated the Autofocusvideo workshop in 1978, an early laboratory for experimental, ecological and social media work. Two years later, he co-founded the Kreuzberg Art and Culture Centre, a hotspot of Berlin's subculture at the time.
From 1982 onwards, Pfanz worked worldwide as a freelance director, author and producer on documentary films and television formats – in countries including the USA, China, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Turkey, Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Iceland. In 1993, he completed his film and postgraduate studies at the University of Fine Arts with distinction.
He made over 20 documentaries for broadcasters such as ARD, SWR, NDR, WDR and ARTE and developed his own children's film format, "Das Abenteuer um die Ecke" (The Adventure Around the Corner), for SWR.
He wrote several screenplays for feature films, including "Brent Spar" (MfG Filmförderung), "Eleanora und das Alien" (Hamburger Filmförderung), "Karl May" (MfG Filmförderung) and "Babylon" (Hamburger Filmförderung).
In 2000, he and Gülsel Özkan founded the film production company PLANET in Hamburg and Ettlingen, which was later transformed into "FUTURE DESIGN COMPANY" in 2018 to expand production beyond classic film and television to new media such as 3D, VR, AR and gaming.
Together with managing director Gülsel Özkan, he implemented, among other things, "Incentive Funding" from MFG Filmförderung and "Slate Funding" from the EU. They also supervised several ecological film projects for the European LIFE project on the "Rhine floodplains" and the "Southern Black Forest".
UNIVERSITY, TEACHING AND DRAMATURGY
In 1997, he began teaching at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG) at the ZKM, where he taught media art. He became head of the video, film, sound, animation, stage and multimedia studios.
His research and teaching focused on European film history, storytelling, dramaturgy for conventional and new digital media such as 3D and VR, and a research project on "artificial and artistic intelligence".
Two years later, he completed the EAVE programme for the promotion of European producers and deepened his training in dramaturgy in the EU programme SOURCES, focusing on comedy, thrillers, love stories, project development, dialogue work and character development. Since 2008, he has been teaching dramaturgy himself – alongside Keith Cunningham and Tom Schlesinger, among others, also in the EU programme SOURCES.
From 2002 to 2011, he was spokesperson for the media arts department and a member of the HfG university council for nine years, as well as a member of the advisory board of Karlshochschule International University.
RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS
With the Expanded 3 Digital Cinema Laboratory, which he founded at the HfG/ZKM in 2010, Pfanz established a globally unique laboratory for researching new digital narrative formats in film, art and technology. Back in 2009, he initiated the 3D Alliance Karlsruhe and an international 3D consortium with partners in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Canada.
In 2011, he also became an honorary professor at Karlshochschule International University for art and culture management and media management. As coordinator of the EU project Parallax, he led a continuing education initiative in cooperation with Czechia and France.
Pfanz lectures internationally – including at Disney Research Zurich and the Fraunhofer Institute Berlin, at German universities such as HFF Potsdam and Munich, ifs Cologne, at European universities such as NFTS London, Zurich, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Prague, Paris, Barcelona, Santa Cruz and Lodz, as well as at international universities such as Los Angeles, Tokyo, Singapore and Campo Grande.
In China, Ludger Pfanz teaches at the Beijing Film Academy and Tsinghua University, among others.
He regularly organises workshops with renowned filmmakers such as Wim Wenders and has been active in European programmes such as Transistor and S3D World. , he has served on juries, including at the BAKA Forum, the Women's Film Festival in Harare, and as jury president at the Beijing Film Festival and the Annual World Conference on VR Industry in Nanchang. He was also co-organiser, curator, jury president and keynote speaker at the international exhibition and conference "Art and Science" at the National Museum in Beijing.
FESTIVAL WORK AND AWARDS
Since 2011, he has been director of the international BEYOND Festival, which he founded, and the Future Design symposium, which deals with new dramaturgical structures in media such as VR, AR, gaming and the role of "artificial and artistic intelligence".
In 2012, Ludger Pfanz was honoured as Germany's Cultural and Creative Pilot. In the same year, the BEYONDsymposium received the "Germany – Land of Ideas" award.
FUTURE DESIGN, TEACHING AND ARTISTIC CREATION
In 2014, he founded the European Film Winter School in Tenerife – a transnational initiative involving the HFF Munich, the Universidad de Bellas Artes La Laguna and Aalto University Helsinki, among others. This was followed in 2015 by the interdisciplinary programme Future Design – Artistic Visions for Europe and BEYOND, which brings together art, science and technology in the context of social issues of the future. To this end, he founded the Future Design Institute e.V. together with Gülsel Özkan.
Since 1997, Ludger Pfanz has been working as a project consultant, supervisor and dramaturg on projects by his students, alumni and freelance authors and directors such as Elke Reinhuber, Bastian Epple, Marco Kugel, Oliver Ziegenbalg, Kerstin Polte, Shapouar Shabazi and Minh Anh Nguyen, who have received national and international awards.
For the accreditation, certification and quality assurance institute ACQUIN, he evaluated the Bauhaus University in Weimar and Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle, among others.
Since October 2024, Ludger Pfanz has once again devoted himself to his work as a freelance artist, researcher and author. His main work in progress is a three-volume story trilogy, a comprehensive and forward-looking compendium on the structuring of narratives in classic and new media formats.
LANGUAGES
Pfanz teaches and works in German, English and Spanish.
FILM AWARDS AND PRIZES
- 1992 - A PORTRAIT: Rigoberta Menchù (live broadcast of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize), ARD
- 1996 - America's: Awards:
*"Grand Jury Prize", Sixth International Environment and Nature Film Festival in Sacile, Italy.
*Awarded at the Indian Film Festival II Festival de Cine y Video de las Naciones Abya Yala in Ecuador/South America.
*Special mention at the XVIII Festival de La Habana Cuba, as best film about Latin America by non-Latin American filmmakers.
- 1999 - Thorns in My Eye: Odyssey Special Jury Prize for Documentary Films, Interfilm Festival Nuremberg, Festival médias nord-sud in Geneva, International Human Rights Film Festival Nuremberg, Exile Film Festival Gothenburg, Sweden, nominated in three categories for the Prix Europe Berlin.
- 2001/2002 - HEIMAT BABYLON: Screenplay nominated for the Baden-Württemberg Screenplay Award, proposed for the "German Screenplay Award 2003".
- 2002 - Der Schwarzarbeiter (The Illegal Worker):
*1st prize for best short film, Osnabrück International Film Festival.
*1st place in the short film competition at the 29th International Film Weekend Würzburg 2003.
- 2006 - Greenpeace gegen Shell (Greenpeace vs. Shell): "Best Journalistic Film", Potsdam Eco Film Festival.
- 2012 - Culture and Creative Pilots of Germany: Award for "BEYOND", "Germany Land of Ideas".
FILMOGRAPHY
2012 “The Temple of the Goddess” • 3D installation • 2008 “Multicultural Society”, 3D installation • 2007 “Drowned Before My Eyes” • Refugee documentary 2006 “The Adventure Around the Corner” 2005 “The Turn of the Brent Spar” • “Best Film for Journalism” Ökofilmtour 2006 2004 “An Alliance for the Future” 2003 “Brent Spar” script, 2002 “Schwarzarbeiter” short film, Public Prize for Best Short Film, Independent Film Festival, Osnabrück, 1st Prize for Short Film Competition, 29th International Film Weekend Würzburg, 2001 “Waldeslust – Die Deutschen und der Wald” (Forest Delight – The Germans and the Forest) • “Eleanora & Alien” script/children’s film 2000 “Dornen in meinem Auge” (Thorns in My Eye) Turkey• Odyssee – Special Prize of the Jury for Documentary Film” Interfilm Festival Nuremberg. Nominated in three categories: Prix Europe Berlin • “No Longer Silent” Turkey, 1999, “Heimat Babylon”, 1998, “Tai Chi Chuan”, China, 1997, “Circumcision”, Turkey, 1996, “The Americas”, USA, Guatemala, Ecuador • “Grand Prize of the Jury”, 6th International Environmental and Nature Film Festival, Sacile, Italy, 1996 • Award at the Indian Film Festival II Festival de Cine y Video de las Naciones Abya Yala, in Ecuador, 1996 • Special mention at the XVIII Festival de La Habana Cuba 1996 for best film about Latin America by a non-Latin-American Filmmaker. • "The Voice of Heaven", Ecuador • "The Hidden Face", Guatemala, 1995, "The Way is the Goal", Italy • "Between the Fronts - The Alevis", Turkey • “Asylum, Asylum”, script, 1994 “The Unknown Face of Islam”, Turkey, 1993, “Dances with Tailings”, USA, • “In Search of Oneself”, Iceland, 1992, “Rigoberta Menchú”, Guatemala, 1991, “Qué todos se levanten”, Guatemala. • "El oro negro", Ecuador, 1990, "The Surgical Intervention", Iraq, 1989, "Slow Farewell", Spain/West Germany, 1988, "In the Autumn of the Beast", (West Germany 120 mins)
CONTACT
The Future Design Institute e.V.
Ludger Pfanz
Chairman
Klostergasse 3
76275 Ettlingen
015114797906
pfanz@the-future-design-institute.com