Biography
Lutz Heineking was born in Cologne on February 21, 1975. In 1996 he moved to New York, where he began studying The Art and Technique of Filmmaking at the New York Film Academy; the following year he transferred to the London Film School. He graduated in 1999.
Back in Germany, he founded the film production company Eitelsonnenschein together with his brother Peter in Cologne in 2003, which mainly realizes advertising and image films as well as online campaigns for clients such as Vodafone, Red Bull, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Siemens and public braodacster ARD, to name just a few.
In addition, Heineking jr. completed his diploma studies at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts from 2008 to 2010. As a producer, director and writer, he realized the four-part TV series "Endlich Deutsch!" in 2014: The mockumentary focused on six migrants from different countries taking a naturalization course. They are accompanied by radio presenter Andreas Bursche. The provocative series received a nomination for the Grimme Award and was honored by the German Academy for Television in the category of Best Television Entertainment.
In the next few years, Heineking jr. also increasingly realized fictional formats with Eitelsonnenschein. In 2016, he directed the ten-part German comedy web series "World of Wolfram," about the adventures of a young gamer who lives in a shared apartment with an orc and an elf. The series won several international awards, including at the Los Angeles Film Awards.
It was followed in 2017 by "Das Institut - Oase des Scheiterns," a workplace sitcom about the work of a German cultural institute in a Central Asian fantasy state. At the 2018 Bavarian Television Award, author Robert Löhr was honored for Best Screenplay, and at the 2018 German Comedy Award, the series received the prize for Best Innovation.
A major success was the comedy series "Andere Eltern" (2019-2020), a mockumentary that follows a group of parents in Cologne who found a daycare center as a parents' association. For this series, Lutz Heineking Jr. was again nominated for a Grimme Award.
He finally received this award for the comedy web series "Drinnen - Im Internet sind alle gleich" (2020), about the hardships of a newly separated mother and advertiser (Lavinia Wilson) who has to deal with the consequences of the Corona pandemic. That same year, the comedy series "Ausgebremst" starred Maria Furtwängler and Thomas Loibl. This was followed in early 2021 by Heineking's crime comedy series "KBV - Keine besonderen Vorkommnisse," starring Jürgen Vogel, Serkan Kaya and Annette Frier. It was nominated for Best Comedy Series at the German Television Awards and the German Comedy Awards. A second season followed at the end of 2021.
In spring 2022, Lutz Heineking jr. began shooting his first feature film: The comedy "Der Pfau" is about five stressed-out bankers who have to travel to a team-building seminar in the Scottish Highlands. Heineking cast Lavinia Wilson, Jürgen Vogel, Tom Schilling, Serkan Kaya and David Kross in the leading roles.