Today is the German Premier of "GLETSCHERGRAB" (OPERATION NAPOLEON, international title) the project I had the pleasure of being a part of playing the role of Ambassador Russell with Game of Thrones star Iain Glen. I was very happy to participate in the second project with Elsani Film and the first for Splendid Film and Saga Film. The film stars Iain Glen (G0T, Resident Evil), Jack Fox (Sandition, Riviera), German star, Wotan Wilke Möhring (The Island, West of Liberty), Vivian Didriksen Ólafsdóttir (Cop Secret), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Severance, The Minister). The film was directed by Icelandic director, Óskar Thór Axelsson who was such a pleasure to work with.
The film was adapted from the novel "napleonsskjolin", by Arnaldur Indriðason, and translated into 40 languages. Arnaldur Indriðason has the rare distinction of having won the Nordic Crime Novel Prize two years in a row and is also the winner of the highly respected and world famous CWA Gold Dagger Award for the top crime novel of the year in the English language, "Silence of the Grave". Story: A lawyer sucked into an international conspiracy after being accused of a murder she didn't commit. Only chance of survival lies in uncovering the secret of an old German World War II airplane, discovered on Iceland's largest glacier. I think Cineplex / Filmpalast Cologne will be hopping tonight! In May of 2022 I flew to London for new photos with Kim Hardy Photography and make up by Sherrie Warwick
Below are some photos from that session. You can see more by clicking on PHOTOS above. We are very busy with pre-production for our first live production!
The past three years have been challenging for many creatives, and etc also. We started an English speaking theater company in Germany, during a worldwide pandemic. Despite COVID, we were afforded the opportunity through grants which I was fortunate to receive three times from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine Westaflia in Germany and the German government. We had to take the opportunity and so far we've been on track. We have a director, a show, have spoken with the publisher, have a set, a rehearsal room and have begun rehearsing. Unfortunately there have been some important circumstances out of our control which have resulted in us having to delay our premiere until probably June 2023. Although this is very disappointing for us, it affords usan opportunity to work more on getting our first production to a standard that we are proud to show the audience in Cologne and elsewhere in Germany. If you haven't already signed up for our newsletter, please do. etc-english theater cologne I had the honor of working for Elsani Film (and Saga Film and Splendid Entertainment) again in their new international (Germany / Iceland) co-production action film, OPERATION NAPOLEAN. I play the role of Ambassador Russell opposite Game of Thrones legend, Ian Glen. Also gracing the scenes is German film / tv star, Wotan Wilke Möhring. It was my first time working with Icelandic director, Oskar Thor Axelsson and I hope not the last. Besides being professional and competent, he was very articulate in communicating his vision for each character in the scene in addition to his patience, charm and warmth. The German and Icelandic teams were fabulous to work with and made me feel very welcome. Another bonus was, I was filming in my neighborhood! I am very grateful to everyone who made this opportunity happen
2022 started out very busy with the continuation of our first educational project - The English Writing Challenge. We are working with two, sixteen year old high school students on the monologues they created. We will be filming them at the end of May and by June they should be on our website.
Also, I am so happy to report that I received another grant from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine Westaflia in Germany and the German government. This new grant will enable us to produce our first LIVE theater production in the fall of 2022! Please stay tuned to our social media or if you haven't signed up for our newsletter on the website, please do! etc-english theater cologne We are proud to announce that the etc - english theater cologne website is finally online! Please stop by, and click around, watch the online content, see our Christmas messages, check out the Education part and the Support part. Sign up for our Newsletter if you haven't already. If you encounter any problems in any version of the site, i.e. desktop, mobile, tablet, please let us know. We've tested everything but there could still be a few gremlins in there causing problems that we haven't seen yet. Thank you!
We want to thank all the individuals, companies and organizations that have helped us on this long journey since last year when we received the first grant from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine Westaflia in Germany and the German government which helped us to get started and to film our genre trailers - The Proposal and Old Time Radio Show / Comedy. Then we received a second grant this year which enabled us to create and realize our first educational project - The English Writing Challenge! We wish you a very Happy Holiday and a safe, healthy, peaceful and adventurous new year. We look forward to seeing you at our first live show in 2022! With gratitude, Kathleen Renish & James Bunyon CoFounders etc-english theater cologne Last year in 2020, I received a grant from my city / government and was able to found etc - english theater cologne with my British colleague, James Bunyon. etc is a professional theater company offering American and British theater, projects, education. Oct - Dec. we were busy Skyping with possible partners to help us get this started like web designers, logo designers, film production companies, etc. By January we were ready to film "genre trailers" showing genres of shows we'd like to do after the COVID situation improves but due to all the lock downs, that was delayed until April 2021. At the end of April we filmed two different genre trailers, Old Time Radio Show / Comedy and the other Classical / Fantasy / Drama. We started uploading the trailers at the end of June early July to our etc Facebook Page and our etc Instagram. We hope to have our etc website launched by mid September 2021.
We are currently working on our first educational program and making plans for our first LIVE production which we hope to bring to a theater in Koeln or Bonn before the end of 2021. If not, then hopefully in Q1 2022 depending on the COVID situation. Contact: kathleen@etc-englishtheatercologne.com The nominations continue. KUNTERGRAU has made it to the Official Selection of die Seriale 2021,
I am so proud to have been a part of this project from almost the beginning. Thanks to Kai Kreuser the director and anyway Koeln for trusting me to do the role of Oma Margarethe. They are all like my family. 🙏😘❤️💐.
This week is a special photo shoot with the amazing photographer, Lars Henning Schroeder who will be taking some shots of, James Bunyon and I, as co-founders of etc- english theater cologne, for our social media accounts and our new website.
I've updated my German Reel and added a new short, dramatic German Sizzle Reel with clips from Season 3 of KUNTERGRAU.
A few weeks ago, I was very excited to learn that KUNTERGRAU was nominated for the 2021 Grimme-Preis It has been a great pleasure for me to play a recurring role in Europe's #1 award-winning gay web series since 2015. My role as Grandma Margarethe has been described as the "heart and soul" of the series. The series was produced by Anyway-Koeln without any support from streaming platforms or TV stations and through crowd-funding from their millions of fans around the world.
Kai Kreuser is the director of KUNTERGRAU and with his debut film, LABEL ME, won Best Medium Length Film at the Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis in 2019. Keep on the lookout for more award winning works from this talented, young, up-and-coming director! I am very grateful to director Kai Kreuser and to anyway Koeln for allowing me to be part of this wonderful project. I started with my new London agent in July 2020 and the first audition invitation I received through him, I booked the job! At the beginning of Sept. 2020. I flew to Lisabon, Portugal to film a new commercial for a pharamaceutical drug called REXULTI. It was a bit strained due to filming during a pandemic, but Lisabon is a beautiful city and my colleagues were wonderful. Here is the result of that team work: REXULTI
A big thank you to my wonderful agent, Edwin Lowe from 1 Artists' Agency for taking such good care of me during that shoot. I'm very happy to announce that I am being represented by 1 ARTISTS' AGENCY in London and my agent is Edwin Lowe. Despite 2020 being marked by COVID19, I'm still looking forward to many interesting projects that Edwin and I will embark on together.
1 ARTISTS' AGENCY 115 Balls Pond Road, Hackney, London N1 4BL Phone: 07789 935248 E-mail: edwin.lowe@1artistsagency.com www.1artistsagency.com In January 2020 I had the opportunity to work again with the amazing photographer, Lars Henning Schroeder and makeup by Rebekka Zeiss! We had a great session and many interesting characters came out and also some nice commercial ones too. I'm still trying to figure out how to add them as a gallery in PHOTOS (I lost my web person who normally does these sorts of things) but here are a few shots.
My English and German (with English subtitles) Reels have been updated with scenes from the ZDF, Swedish/German whistle blower, political series, WEST OF LIBERTY (Lars Eidinger, WotanWilke Möhring) directed by Barbara Eder and the RTL longest running German daily, UNTER UNS, directed by Christian Singh. Just click on REELS, Happy viewing!
In Episode 4 I play the role of a retired CIA agent. It was a great pleasure to work with director Barbara Eder.
ZDF has found a broadcasting date for the international co-production "West of Liberty". The station will broadcast the agent thriller, staged by Barbara Eder, as a two-parter - each 96 minutes long - on Sunday, 24 November and one day later at 22:15 pm. The international version, comprising six 45-minute episodes, was already available in the ZDF media library a week earlier on November 17. The production, for which Network Movie, Germany and the Swedish production company Anagram worked in co-production with ZDF and SVT Sweden, is based on the novel of the same name by the author Thomas Engström and is the first part of an entire novel series about the former Stasi informer and double agent Ludwig Licht. The scripts were written by Swedish author Sara Heldt and her British colleague Donna Sharpe. Wotan Wilke Möhring plays Ludwig Licht, who has retired from active service and has long been the best customer of his less than successful Kreuzberg pub. Then he is contacted by his old CIA colleague GT Berner (Matthew Marsh), who also has his best times behind him and knows that he can only secure his job with a spectacular coup. So together they set off in search of Lucien Gell, the submerged leader of a whistleblower network, played by Lars Eidinger. tinyurl.com/yydng3sh Between the 25th and 29th of November the birthday week of "Unter Uns" takes place.
I play the role of Julia Keyser, Civil Servant, who marries Easy and Ringo (Lars Steinhöfel and Timothy Boldt). The episode number is 6244. Many thanks to Casting Director Tina Rinderspacher. www.rtl.de/cms/sendungen/unter-uns.html www.dwdl.de/nachrichten/74471/rtl_feiert_unter_unsjubilaeum_mit_einer_extrafolge/
I just finished shooting a nice role for the leading German soap series, UNTER UNS. I can't say anything about it now, but check back for more information!
https://www.rtl.de/cms/sendungen/unter-uns.html In early September I was be part of a team of voice actors dubbing YAKARI, an animated feature adaptation of the best-selling Belgian-French comic-book series about a young Sioux boy who is able to communicate with animals. I dubbed the character, RINGTAIL which is a friend of Yakari on his adventures. More news later!
I wrapped up filming the sci fi film, HELLEBORE playing the role, Commander Areta Lelantos, from director, Veronika Bolotina.
Watch out for more from this up and coming young, talented director. She is in the process of applying for film funding for the long film of the same name. We are all waiting until we can start shooting the long film. That is going to be an adventure! I'm feeling very grateful!
On Saturday, June 22, I had another shooting day for KUNTERGRAU Season 3. It was great being back on set with some of the cast and crew. My final shooting day is on July 13 and then the season goes into post production. Premiere will be in 2020. I'm really looking forward to it!
My new Sizzle Reel, English Reel and German Reel (with English subtitles are finished. Just click on REELS to see them or on the front page of this site, scroll down and you'll find them there too. Happy watching!
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