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Corinna Harfouch

Weitere Namen
Corinna Meffert (Geburtsname)
Date of Birth
10/16/1954 - 12:00
Geburtsort
Suhl
Biography

Born with the name of Corinna Meffert on the 16th of October, 1954, Corinna Harfouch grew up in Großenhain (Saxony). After finishing high school, she did an apprenticeship as a nurse and started her studies in textile engineering at the technical university in Dresden in 1975. From 1978 to 1981 she was enrolled at the Berlin drama school. Taking on various theatrical engagements – among them at the Berliner Ensemble and the Deutschen Theater – in the years that followed she played a number of roles in various cinema and television productions.

Already in 1985, she caught the eye of the cinema-going public with her performance in Roland Gräf's Friedrich Wolf film adaptation "Das Haus am Fluß". She received several awards for her performances in two main roles in 1988. In Siegfried Kühn's film "Die Schauspielerin", she played Maria Rheine, who renounces a promising acting career under the Nazis, becoming Jewish instead in order to stay together with her lover. In Michael Gwisdek's first film as director, "Treffen in Travers", she played the wife of the revolutionary Georg Forster. For this highly intensive role, Harfouch received an award for her performance at the very last film festival to take place in the GDR.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she took on various roles, including the twin mother in "Charlie & Louise – Das doppelte Lottchen" (1994), a GDR fugitive citizen in "Das Versprechen" ("The Promise", 1994), a prison doctor in the black comedy "Sexy Sadie" (1996), a beautiful murder suspect in "Solo für Klarinette" ("Solo for Clarinet", 1998) and a psycho-therapist in Bernd Eichinger's film "Der große Bagarozy" ("The Great Bagarozy", 1999).

Corinna Harfouch achieved particular success with her role both in the children's film "Bibi Blocksberg" (2002) as well as its sequel "Bibi Blocksberg und das Geheimnis der blauen Eulen" ("Bibi Blocksberg and the Secret of the Blue Owls", 2004), where she played a witch. For the first of the two she received a German Film Award for best actress in a supporting role. She also attracted widespread attention for her performance in Oliver Hirschbiegel's film "Der Untergang" ("Downfall", 2004), where she played the role of Magda Goebbels. For this performance she was again nominated for the German Film Award.

In the following years Harfouch played in such ambitious films like the adaptation of Houellebecqs novel "Elementarteilchen" ("Elementary Particles", 2006) by Oskar Roehler, in Tom Tykwer's adaptation of Patrick Süsskind's "Das Parfum" ("Perfume", 2006) and also in smaller productions like Franziska Meletzky's "Frei nach Plan" ("According to the Plan", 2007). In 2008 she starred in the new film by Caroline Link, "Im Winter ein Jahr" ("A Year Ago in Winter").

Later she could be seen in a number of ambitious television plays, for example in Mark Schlichter's drama "Tod einer Schülerin" (2010) or Jan Ruzicka's crime comedy "Schmidt & Schwarz" (2011). At the end of 2011 "Auf der Suche" ("Looking for Simon"; D: Jan Krüger) hit the cinema screens, a by and large independently produced drama about a mother who is looking for her missing, gay son in Marseille.

In 2011, she displayed her comic talent as the youthful mother of a struggling heartbreaker in Thorsten Wacker's screen adaptation of the novel "Kein Sex ist auch keine Lösung". She then shone in the role of a depressive housewife in Hans-Christian Schmid's domestic drama "Was bleibt" ("Home for the Weekend"), which premiered at the 2012 Berlin IFF. In the comedy, "3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad" ("Move"), Harfouch played the mother of three grown-ups who try to make living in Berlin. In Sebastian Kutzli's drama "Puppe" (2012), she starred in the demanding role of a therapist who tries to gain the trust of a tough and reclusive street kid.

In 2013, playing an educated middle-class, emotionally stunted mother, she belonged to the large ensemble of the scathing satire "Finsterworld". Urs Egger's "Der Fall Bruckner" (2014, TV), about a youth welfare officer (Harfouch) who looks into a difficult case of child abuse, also received much critical praise. For her performance Harfouch won the Günter Rohrbach Filmpreis and the Deutscher Schauspielerpreis (German Actor Prize); she was also awarded the Grimme Preis together with Urs Egger and the authors Hans Ullrich Krause and Cooky Ziesche. She played other TV roles, among them a wife persecuted by a killer in Hagen Bogdanski's black comedy "Die vermisste Frau" (2016) and the helicopter mother of an 18-year-old son in the drama "Viel zu nah" (2017). The latter part earned her the Hessian Television Prize.   

Harfouch had a short, but humorous and striking appearance on the big screen as a nihilistic vocational information centre employee in the box office hit "Fack ju Göhte 3" ("Suck Me Shakespeer 3", 2017). She played leading roles as a frustrated wife in the tragicomic road movie "Wer hat eigentlich die Liebe erfunden?" ("Cloud Whispers", DE/CH 2018) and again as the overprotective mother of an adult son in Jan-Ole Gerster's "Lara" (2019). For this achievement Harfouch received the German Film Critics' Prize and the Actors' Prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.  

At the Hamburg Film Festival 2019 Urs Egger's drama "Kranke Geschäfte" ("The Placebo Effect") about illegal drug testing by West German pharmaceutical companies in the GDR celebrated its premiere. In the film, Harfouch played an inscrutable GDR ward physician.

In the series "Deutschland 89" (2020), she played a GDR agent, and in the award-winning TV tragicomedy "Ruhe! Hier stirbt Lothar" (2021), she played a breast cancer patient who befriends a man in a hospice who is also terminally ill with cancer.   

In 2021 "Das Mädchen mit den goldenen Händen" ("The Girl With the Golden Hands"), an East German social study and mother-daughter drama starring Harfouch and Birte Schnöink, premiered at the Munich Film Festival. The film was then theatrically released in February 2022. At the end of 2022, Harfouch played a village grandmother who can predict deaths in her dreams in the anarchic, imaginative comedy "Was man von hier aus sehen kann" ("What You Can See From Here"). The film won the Ensemble Award at the Hessian Film Awards. On television, she was seen in a leading role in the love triangle "Der neue Freund" and as a courageous police academy lecturer in the two-part "Tatort: Nichts als die Wahrheit" (2023).  

Corinna Harfouch was part of the main ensemble of Matthias Glasner's family drama "Sterben" ("Dying") as a seriously ill mother. The film premiered in the competition of the Berlinale 2024 and won several awards. Corinna Harfouch received the German Film Award for Best actress in a lead role for her moving performance.

Corinna Harfouch has two sons from her second marriage with the actor and director Michael Gwisdek: Robert, who is also an actor, and Johannes. After her separation from Gwisdek she was in a relationship with producer Bernd Eichinger.

Filmography
2023-2025
Vier Leben
  • Cast
2024
Die Assistentin
  • Cast
2023/2024
Kundschafter des Friedens 2
  • Cast
2023/2024
Am Tag der wandernden Seelen
  • Cast
2023/2024
Die Ironie des Lebens
  • Cast
2022-2024
Sterben
  • Cast
2023
Der Junge, dem die Welt gehört
  • Cast
2022/2023
Der neue Freund
  • Cast
2022/2023
Nichts als die Wahrheit (2)
  • Cast
2022/2023
Nichts als die Wahrheit (1)
  • Cast
2021/2022
Was man von hier aus sehen kann
  • Cast
2021
Wunder gibt es immer wieder
  • Cast
2020/2021
Zwischen uns
  • Cast
2020/2021
Alles in bester Ordnung
  • Cast
2020/2021
Immer der Nase nach
  • Cast
2020/2021
Das Mädchen mit den goldenen Händen
  • Cast
2019-2021
Blutsauger
  • Cast
2020
Ruhe! Hier stirbt Lothar
  • Cast
2019/2020
Deutschland 89
  • Cast
2019
Kranke Geschäfte
  • Cast
2017-2019
Lara
  • Cast
2019
Zeit der Geheimnisse
  • Cast
2015-2018
Faust Sonnengesang III
  • Cast
2015-2018
Faust Sonnengesang II
  • Voice
2016-2018
Wer hat eigentlich die Liebe erfunden?
  • Cast
2018
Gosch
  • Participation
2018
Tutorial
  • Cast
2016/2017
So was von da
  • Cast
2017
Fack Ju Göhte 3
  • Cast
2016/2017
Viel zu nah
  • Cast
2017
Am Abgrund
  • Cast
2015/2016
Die vermisste Frau
  • Cast
2015
Holly
  • Cast
2014
Der Fall Bruckner
  • Cast
2012/2013
Finsterworld
  • Cast
2011/2012
Die Ballade von Cenk und Valerie
  • Cast
2009-2012
Der Mondmann
  • Voice
2011/2012
Was bleibt
  • Cast
2011/2012
3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad
  • Cast
2011/2012
Faust Sonnengesang I
  • Voice
2010-2012
Puppe
  • Cast
2010-2012
Ihr Brief zur Hochzeit
  • Cast
2010/2011
Kein Sex ist auch keine Lösung
  • Cast
2010/2011
Die Unsichtbare
  • Cast
2010/2011
Auf der Suche
  • Cast
2010
Schön ist anders
  • Cast
2009
Giulias Verschwinden
  • Cast
2008/2009
Vermisst
  • Cast
2008/2009
This is Love
  • Cast
2007-2009
Whisky mit Wodka
  • Cast
2008/2009
Mein Leben - Corinna Harfouch: Was ich will ist spielen!
  • Participation
2009
Hand in Hand
  • Cast
2009
Tod einer Schülerin
  • Cast
2007/2008
Im Winter ein Jahr
  • Cast
2007/2008
Berlin Calling
  • Cast
2006-2008
Meine Mutter, mein Bruder und ich
  • Cast
2008
Verkauft und verraten
  • Cast
2008
Ein Dorf sieht Mord
  • Cast
2006/2007
An die Grenze
  • Cast
2006/2007
Teufelsbraten
  • Cast
2006/2007
Frei nach Plan
  • Cast
2005/2006
Wut
  • Cast
2005/2006
Pauline
  • Cast
2005/2006
Der sechste Sinn
  • Cast
2005/2006
Das Parfum - Die Geschichte eines Mörders
  • Cast
2005/2006
Helen, Fred und Ted
  • Cast
2005/2006
Elementarteilchen
  • Cast
2005/2006
Mein Vater der Türke
  • Voice
2005/2006
Silberhochzeit
  • Cast
2005
Rose
  • Cast
2004/2005
Durch diese Nacht sehe ich keinen einzigen Stern
  • Cast
2003/2004
Bibi Blocksberg und das Geheimnis der blauen Eulen
  • Cast
2003/2004
Der Untergang
  • Cast
2003/2004
Basta. Rotwein oder Totsein
  • Cast
2003/2004
Wie das Leben so spielt
  • Cast
2003/2004
Hitlers letzte Tage. Der Film "Der Untergang"
  • Participation
2003
Hamlet X
  • Cast
2003
Die fremde Frau
  • Cast
2001/2002
Bibi Blocksberg
  • Cast
2001/2002
Erkan & Stefan gegen die Mächte der Finsternis
  • Cast
2001/2002
Gebürtig
  • Cast
2001/2002
Verrückt nach Paris
  • Cast
2002
Mathilda
  • Cast
2001
Gewaltfieber
  • Cast
2000/2001
Das Monstrum
  • Cast
2001
Doppelter Einsatz Berlin - Wehe dem, der liebt
  • Cast
2000/2001
Vera Brühne
  • Cast
1998-2000
Fandango
  • Cast
2000
Bernd Eichinger. Wenn das Leben zum Kino wird
  • Participation
1999/2000
Der Weg zur Hölle
  • Cast
2000
Jetzt oder nie: Zeit ist Geld
  • Cast
1998/1999
Der große Bagarozy
  • Cast
1998/1999
Grüne Wüste
  • Cast
1999
Die Wand
  • Cast
1997/1998
Solo für Klarinette
  • Cast
1997/1998
Das Mambospiel
  • Cast
1998
Bis zum Horizont und weiter
  • Cast
1996/1997
Geisterstunde. Fahrstuhl ins Jenseits. 4. Das Spiegelbild
  • Cast
1996/1997
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
  • Cast
1996/1997
Der Ausbruch
  • Cast
1997
Corinna Harfouch. Eine preußische Diva
  • Cast
1996
Das Tor des Feuers
  • Cast
1995
Verdammt, er liebt mich
  • Cast
1995
Weiß wie Schnee, rot wie Blut
  • Cast
1995/1996
Irren ist männlich
  • Cast
1996
Gefährliche Freundin
  • Cast
1995/1996
Wer anhält stirbt
  • Cast
1995/1996
Sexy Sadie
  • Cast
1994/1995
5 Stunden Angst. Geiselnahme im Kindergarten
  • Cast
1994/1995
Eine kleine banale Geschichte
  • Cast
1993/1994
Das Versprechen
  • Cast
1993/1994
Stockholm Marathon
  • Cast
1993/1994
Charlie & Louise - Das doppelte Lottchen
  • Cast
1993/1994
Abschied von Agnes
  • Cast
1993
Goldstaub
  • Cast
1992/1993
Inge, April und Mai
  • Cast
1991/1992
Die Spur des Bernsteinzimmers
  • Cast
1992
Thea und Nat
  • Cast
1990/1991
Zwischen Pankow und Zehlendorf
  • Cast
1991
Hüpf, Häschen hüpf oder Alptraum eines Staatsanwalts
  • Cast
1990
Der Tangospieler
  • Cast
1988/1989
Treffen in Travers
  • Cast
1988/1989
Pestalozzis Berg
  • Cast
1987/1988
Die Schauspielerin
  • Cast
1987/1988
Fallada - Letztes Kapitel
  • Cast
1987/1988
Yasemin
  • Cast
1986/1987
Wengler & Söhne. Eine Legende
  • Cast
1987
Der kleine Staatsanwalt
  • Cast
1985/1986
Das Haus am Fluß
  • Cast
1982/1983
Verzeihung, sehen Sie Fußball?
  • Cast
1979/1980
Vergeltung?
  • Cast
Source-URL: https://www.filmportal.de/en/person/corinna-harfouch_efc121b0619a6c3fe03053d50b3736f2