Rick Minnich

Unique traits: American indy filmmaker with 30 years of ex-pat experience in Berlin (fluent in German, too!).

• 

  Mr. Rudolpho's Jubilee (2016)
  Film (Comedy, Music, Musical and Romance) Actor Mr. Rudolpho's Jubilee is a romantic comedy with musical narration by Bright Blue Gorilla! It is the story of a world-famous Italian fashion designer who becomes disillusioned with his shallow life and decides to commit suicide during Berlin Fashion Week. Fortunately, his plan goes wrong and he's taken in by a group of Bohemian artists (The Boheems), who have no idea who he is. Meanwhile, the world outside searches for Rudolpho... and this being a Bright Blue Gorilla film, the plot thickens, spins and churns with love, music, and comic mayhem! The film is in English, German & Italian. It was shot in Berlin, Milan & Florence and made by 300 artists from 30 different countries.

• 

  The Bomb Hunters (2015)
  Film by Kloos & Co. Medien GmbH / Rick Minnich (Documentary and War) Writer/Director What does it feel like to live atop hundreds of bombs which could explode at any moment? Such is the daily life of the 43,000 citizens of Oranienburg on the northern outskirts of Berlin. The center of Nazi efforts to build an atomic bomb, Oranienburg became the target of the heaviest single Allied bombing of World War II. Now, seventy years later, the town's charismatic mayor, his intrepid bomb disposal experts and a bomb-victim-turned-media-star are joining forces to rid their home of some 300 deadly bombs before they go off ... Written by Minnich, Rick

• 

  Die Mondverschwörung (2011)
  Film (Documentary, Comedy and News) Miscellaneous Crew During his work as chief reporter for DDC-TV, a German-speaking television station in the USA, Dennis Mascarenas has met some pretty strange people and gotten into quite a few hairy situations. But when he is asked to make a film about the Germans' relationship to the moon, it is the beginning of the craziest and most unbelievable assignment of his career. 'The Moon Conspiracy' is like a glimpse into Pandora's Box: it takes Dennis and his audience on a surreal journey into hidden universes, only to end up at the frozen bottom of the German soul. Written by Anonymous

• 

  Forgetting Dad (2008)
  Film by Hoferichter & Jacobs GmbH / Rickfilms (Documentary) Writer/Director One week after a seemingly harmless car accident, a 45-year-old man suffers total amnesia. Christening himself the "New Richard," he embarks upon a new life with a new wife far away from his family. Sixteen years later, his oldest son returns with a camera to investigate why his father's memory never returned. Written by Anonymous

• 

  Homemade Hillbilly Jam (2005)
  Film by Hoferichter & Jacobs GmbH (Documentary) Writer / Director Hillbillies haven't died off; they've simply become neo-hillbillies. Three families of musicians in the Ozark Mountains of Southwestern Missouri give new meaning to the word "hillbilly". Float down the backwaters, soak up some old time religion, savor a washboard duel, and bask in the neon lights of the pseudo-hillbilly showtown Branson. Lean back and merge into hillbilliness. Written by Anonymous

• 

  Heaven on Earth (2001)
  Film by Film University Babelsberg "Konrad Wolf" / Hoferichter & Jacobs GmbH (Documentary) Director Branson, Missouri. Some call it the new Nashville or the Las Vegas of the Bible Belt. Over the past ten years, nearly 40 theaters have shot out of the ground in this once sleepy Ozark Mountain town of fewer than 4000 inhabitants. Here in America's heartland, country legends and television and stage stars from yesteryear have reincarnated themselves and offer up good ol' patriotic, Christian entertainment to six million tourists annually. HEAVEN ON EARTH follows filmmaker Rick Minnich's quest to find the perfect America which Branson promises to be. Seeped in nostalgia, and wallowing in stars, stripes and neon lights, Branson is populated by such colorful figures as USO pin-up girl Jennifer Wilson, country music star Barbara Fairchild, boy wonder Matthew Matney, and, of course, Jesus Christ himself in the bombastic musical "The Promise." Mixing show numbers, interviews, and behind the scenes shots, HEAVEN ON EARTH weaves a dense portrait of the making of the American myth. The film ... Written by Rick Minnich

• 

  Kleingeld (1999)
  Film (Short and Drama) Miscellaneous Crew Herr Hoffman parks his late-model car in a lot across from his corner office on the top floor. Each day, he puts a coin in the cup of a beggar who stands in front of the building. One day, Hoffman looks out his window and notices the beggar washing his car - no one else's in the lot, just Hoffmann's. That evening, when he gives the beggar a coin, Hoffmann tells him not the wash it. But the next day, it happens again. On the third morning, Hoffman drives his car back and forth in a mud puddle; the beggar washes it carefully. That evening, Hoffman has no change and no small bills, only 100 DM. He tries to evade the beggar, who gives chase, cane and all. More than wills collide. Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

• 

  Good Guys & Bad Guys (1997)
  Film by Film University Babelsberg "Konrad Wolf" / RBB (Documentary) Writer / Director "Good Guys and Bad Guys" is a post-Cold War romp through suburban Los Angeles. In 1996, expatriate filmmaker Rick Minnich returned to his native California for his ten-year high school class reunion to confront the right-wing suburban "patriots" who had made his life miserable during the Reagan era. The result is an entertaining and provocative look at what has become of the "Good Guys and Bad Guys" of yesteryear. Written by Rick Minnich

• 

  Bild ohne Titel (1997)
  Film (Short) Director A gallery opening as viewed by the painting. A colorful mix of spectators mingles in the room and around the painting, commenting on it. The “Untitled Picture” comes to the foreground as it experiences an unwanted “artistic addition” … Part of the competition “Planned Sequence – Subjective” from the Franco-German television station ARTE.

• 

  The Book of Lenins (1996)
  Film by Rickfilms (Documentary and Short) Writer / Director Spurred on by his zealous publisher, a wide-eyed American photographer roams the globe in search of the last remaining Lenin statues. But what he finds isn't exactly what his publisher had in mind. An ironic take on post-Cold War Eastern Europe. Written by Rick Minnich

• 

  Beim nächsten mal wird alles besser (1994)
  Film by Rickfilms / Rick Minnich (Short) Writer / Director An anarchist, an intellectual, and a dope-smoking pleasure seeker band together to take history into their own hands in post-Cold War Berlin. But things don’t always go their way when wires get crossed . . .

• 

  Delphi 1830 (1993)
  Film by Rickfilms / Rick Minnich (Animation and Short) Director Using pixillation, DELPHI 1830 portrays one day during the 1993 Berlin Film Festival. The rapid speed of the images accompanied by the associative sound montage convey the hectic pace with which the film-obsessed protagonist races from one cinema to the next. In an exhilarating, often comical way, DELPHI 1830 depicts how we see and hear or how our sensory perceptions operate before our brain processes them.

• Shortlisted for the German Film Prize "Lola" (Oscar equivalent)
  (2012)

• Grand Jury Prize, GZ DOC, Guangzhou, China
  (2009)

• Special Jury Award, IDFA
  (2008)

• Fipa d'Or Biarritz
  (2002)

• Honorable Mention, DOK Leipzig
  (1997)

• Columbia University
  (1986-1990)

• Cal Arts
  (1986-1990)

• Film University Babelsberg "Konrad Wolf"
  (1986-1990)