Giesen, Rolf 1953–

PERSONAL: Born July 4, 1953, in Moers, West Germany (now Germany); son of Anton and Walburga (Rabsch) Giesen. Education: Free University of Berlin, Ph.D., 1979.

ADDRESSES: Home—Onkel-tom-strasse 139, D-14169 Berlin, Germany. Office—Filmmuseum Berlin, Potsdamer-strasse 2, D-10785 Berlin, Germany. E-mail—rgiesen@filmmuseum-berlin.de.

CAREER: FuturEffects, Berlin, Germany, manager, 1983–89; Cinemagic, Potsdam, Germany, supervisor, 1990–92; Filmmuseum Berlin, Berlin, curator of special effects collection, 1992–. Frequent lecturer at film schools; also works as a screenwriter and scenario editor for animated feature films.

MEMBER: Visual Effects Society (Los Angeles, CA).

WRITINGS:

Kino, wie es keiner mag: die schlechtesten Filme der Welt, Ullstein (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), 1984.

Lexikon der Special Effects: von den ersten Filmtricks bis zu den Computeranimationen der Gegenwart, zur Geschichte und Technik der visuellen und mechanischen Spezialeffekte, der eichenfilm-, Modell-, Puppen-und Computeranimation, der synthetischen Filme und virtuellen Kamera, Lexikon Imprint (Berlin, Germany), 2001.

Nazi Propaganda Films, McFarland and Co. (Jefferson, NC), 2003.

Author of Special Effects, Edition 8 1/2, 1985, and of several other film books published in German.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Hitlerjunge Quez, jud süss und Kolberg; a screenplay titled Little Polar Bear, Part 2.

SIDELIGHTS: Rolf Giesen told CA: "At an early age I was inspired by the movies. I have published more than forty books, almost all in the German language, on the history of the cinema, visual effects, animation, and fantasy films. I am interested also in the history of the twentieth century, and did extensive research on propaganda films of Nazi Germany."