Biography
Andrew Bird was born in 1957 in London, where he initially studied German studies before receiving a scholarship to Hamburg, Germany, where he settled and initially supported himself as a translator. He then trained in film editing, starting out as an assistant.
His first work as a lead editor was the documentary essay "El Condor no pasa" (1993) by Ralph Schwingel, co-founder of the production company Wüste Film. In the mid-1990s, through Schwingel, Bird met the young director Fatih Akin, who brought him on to edit his first short films, starting with "Sensin - du bist es!" ("Sensin – it's you!") This marked the beginning of a long-standing, highly productive, and award-winning collaboration: from "Kurz und schmerzlos" ("Short Sharp Shock") onward, Bird has edited all of Akin's feature films.
For his work on the breakthrough success "Gegen die Wand" ("Head-On," 2004), Bird received the Filmplus Award. He earned another Filmplus Award, the German Film Critics Award, the editing prize at the Antalya Film Festival, and the 2008 German Film Award for his editing on "Auf der anderen Seite" ("The Edge of Heaven," 2007).
Beyond Akin, Bird has collaborated with numerous other prominent directors, including Sebastian Schipper on the cult classic "Absolute Giganten" ("Gigantic") - for which he received an honorable mention at the German Camera Awards - and Monika Treut on "Kriegerin des Lichts" ("Warrior of Light"). His skill in weaving parallel storylines, demonstrated in "Im Juli" ("In July") and "Auf der anderen Seite", was also showcased in Uli Gaulke's documentary "Leinwandfieber – Comrades in Dreams" ("Comrades In Dreams," 2006), which profiles four filmmakers from around the world.
Bird edited the internationally co-produced historical film "Die Gräfin" ("The Countess," 2009) for Julie Delpy, and the absurdist, existentialist relationship drama "The Future" (2011) for Miranda July. He worked on Bettina Oberli's tragicomic mother-son story "Lovely Louise" (2013).
Throughout these projects, Bird remained Akin's principal editor. Together, they produced the Hamburg neighborhood comedy "Soul Kitchen" (nominated for the German Film Award), the documentary "Müll im Garten Eden" ("Polluting Paradise"), the historical drama "The Cut", the award-winning and commercially successful teen road movie "Tschick" ("Goodbye Berlin"), adapted from Wolfgang Herrndorf's bestselling novel, and the Golden Globe-winning revenge drama "Aus dem Nichts" ("In the Fade," starring Diane Kruger. Bird received another German Film Award nomination for "Tschick" in 2017. He also collaborated with Akin on the controversial serial killer portrait "Der goldene Handschuh" ("The Golden Glove") and the gangster film "Rheingold."
Outside of Akin, Bird edited Omer Fast's dreamlike feature "Remainder," Uli Gaulke's documentary "Sunset Over Hollywood," and Vanessa Jopp's romance "Gut gegen Nordwind" ("The Space Between the Lines"). His work on the long-term documentary "A Symphony of Noise", about sound artist and composer Matthew Herbert, earned him a German Film Award nomination in 2021.
For Mohammad Rasoulof's internationally acclaimed and Oscar-nominated "Die Saat des heiligen Feigenbaums" ("The Seed of the Sacred Fig"), shot in Iran but post-produced in Germany due to its politically sensitive content, Bird received his fifth German Film Award nomination in 2025, as well as the Edimotion Editing Prize for Feature Film.
He reunited with Akin on "Amrum," inspired by the childhood of Hark Bohm, a German actor, director, screenwriter, and influential figure of the New German Cinema.
Bird is a member of the Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg and the Deutsche Filmakademie. Since 2020, he has also been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, participating in the voting for both the nominations and winners of the Academy Awards - the globally renowned Oscars.