Franz Hofer(1882-1945)

Director and writer Franz Hofer was born in Malstatt, as son of a state-railway-official. He went to school there and in Trier, where his father worked for a while. He left school in 1899, and went to Altenburg (Saxonia)for studying engineering, but it is not known if he realy studied there. In 1910 he was working as writer and actor at the Zentral Theater in Berlin, in the same year he wrote hios first film script for a Henny Porten movie. Due to his scripts, the Luna Filmindustrie Berlin hiered him as an director. Till 1915 he directed 25 films for that company. Late 1915 he was hiered by the Messter-Filmgesellschaft, where he made 8 movies before he went to the Apollo-Filmgesellschaft, where made another 8 movies. Since December 1917 he was working for the Bayerische Filmvertriebs-Gesellschaft, making there 19 movies. 1920 he worked for the Olaf-Filmgesellschaft and Apollo, before opening his own company, the Hofer-Film G.m.b.H., turning his output from comedies and melodramas to the so-called "Sitten-Film" (films about fallen women), but his fame was fading and he returned working for other companies, but his movies at the end 20s were critical and box-office flops. He became member of the NSDAP in 1932, and made one last movie "Drei Kaiserjaeger" (1933), before returning to the stage. 1944 he attended the opening night of one of his comedies at the Stadttheater Goerlitz, and he - living in Berlin - probably died in the last days of the War or the ongoing economical chaos in post-war Germany.