Harun Farocki was born on January 9, 1944, in Nový Jicín, a part of Czechoslovakia annexed by the Third Reich. His father was an Indian doctor who had immigrated to Germany, and his mother was a German woman.
Farocki studied Theatre, Sociology, and Journalism at the Freie Universität in West-Berlin before enrolling in the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin in 1966. He was part of the academy's first generation, which included future Hollywood director Wolfgang Petersen, feminist filmmaker Helke Sander, and RAF terrorist Holger Meins.
Influenced by Jean-Luc Godard and Bertolt Brecht, Farocki developed a unique style of non-narrative filmmaking that focused on understanding, reflecting, and confronting modern society. He produced, wrote, and directed over 100 short and feature-length films for television and cinema, mostly documentaries and essay films that analyzed social realities with a precise use of moving images.
Farocki had numerous group and solo exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in Vienna, the Jeu de Paume in Paris, and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. He also participated in the prestigious documenta in 1997 and 2007.
Farocki's influence extended beyond the art world, with six of his films presented in the Forum of the Berlin International Film Festival and two winning awards at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2003 and 2007. The influential French magazine Cahiers du cinéma named his and Andrei Ujica's masterpiece Videograms of a Revolution (1992) one of the 10 most subversive films ever made.
As a writer, Farocki published the book Speaking about Godard (1998) and wrote about film and media. He was also a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of the Arts in Berlin. In 2004, he became a visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he later became a full professor in 2006.
Farocki's cinematic and intellectual influence extended to the development of the Berlin School film movement, with him co-writing five feature films of its most prominent member Christian Petzold, who was his student and assistant.
