Biography
Matthias Heeder, born in Hamburg in 1951, studied literature, history, politics and philosophy in Hamburg from 1971 through 1977. After his graduation, he studied and worked in the USA, Canada and Southeast Asia from 1977 until 1979. Around that time, Heeder started working as a journalist for radio, TV and the press. In 1979, he co-founded the production company Rhizomfilm with Monika Hielscher. Their first feature-length documentary film "Tell a Vision - Privatfernsehen in Italien" (1982) premiered at the International Film Festival in Mannheim. Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heeder went on to create a number of reportages and documentaries for public broadcasting, such as "Ludwigshafen – eine Stadt und ihr Projekt" (1983) about the introduction of private TV in Germany, "Wenn alle gehen, dann geh‘ ich auch" (1990) about Transylvanian Saxons and "Der Mann aus dem Westen" (1992) about a German dropout in Romania.
Often their films deal with xenophobic violence, the life of the Romanis and the oppressions they face. In "Gelem Gelem" (1992) they accompany a group of homeless Romanis who are trying to break the vicious circle of criminalization, deportation, illegal re-immigration and repeated deportation. In "Jorge - Tod eines Vertragsarbeiters" (1994), they reconstruct the events surrounding the death of an African man who was attacked by skinheads in Dresden in 1991. "Romathan - Ein Platz für Menschen" ("Romathan - Home for the Roma",1999) tells the story of the first professional Romani theatre in Slovakia. "Verschleppt und weggeworfen - ein Sklave in West Afrika" ("Disposable People", 2002-2005) also belongs to the group of Hielscher's and Heeder's feature-length documentaries that were shown at international film festivals.
In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Matthias Heeder has always been active in other roles as well. In 1992 he became a board member of the Filmbüro Hamburg (CEO from 1995 to 1998), where he actively contributed to the development of a new film funding policy and the re-organisation of film funding in Hamburg. From 1993 to 1995 he was CEO of the sustainable housing project Osterkirchenviertel in Hamburg. Since 2003, he has been a member of the selection committee of the film festival DOK Leipizig. For the festival, he also curated a number of festival programmes, e.g. about the Arab Spring (2011) and hommages to filmmakers Peter Liechti (2013) and Jon Bang Carlsen (2014).
In 2017, Heeder's and Hielscher's investigative documentary "Pre-Crime" premiered at the film festival Hot Docs in Toronto. The film deals with new, software-based methods of crime prevention that seem futuristic but already have become a reality. After screenings at a number of other festivals, "Pre-Crime" was released in German cinemas in October 2017.