Short Biography

Marc Forster (born January 27, 1969(1969-01-27)) is a German-Swiss filmmaker and screenwriter, known for films such as Monster`s Ball, Stranger than Fiction, and Quantum of Solace. Marc Forster was born in Au (today Illertissen), in the Neu-Ulm district of Bavaria, as the son of a German doctor and a Swiss architect and grew up in Davos, a winter resort in eastern Switzerland. When still very young, his family moved to Switzerland after learning they were blacklisted by the Baader-Meinhoff group, the predecessor to the German terrorist organisation Red Army Faction (RAF). The first film he saw in a cinema was Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola, when he was 12. He was so excited about it, that from that time on he didn`t hesitate when asked about his dream job: "Director". In 1990, when he was 20 years old, Forster moved to New York, in the United States. For the next three years, he attended New York University`s film school, making several documentary films. In 1995, he moved to Hollywood and shot an experimental low budget film ($10,000) called Loungers, which won the Slamdance Audience Award. Forster`s first motion picture was the psychological drama Everything Put Together, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. His breakthrough film was Monster`s Ball (2001), in which he directed Halle Berry in her Academy Award-winning performance as the wife of a man on death row. His next film, Finding Neverland (2004), was based on the life of author J.M. Barrie. The film was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Forster received BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, and Golden Globe nominations for his direction. Forster also directed an adaptation of Khaled Hosseini`s The Kite Runner, scripted by repeat collaborator David Benioff and starring British newcomer Khalid Abdalla. The film follows an Afghani-American man who returns to his war-ravaged country to save the son of his former best friend. The Kite Runner was released on December 14, 2007.

Marc Forster was, together with Renée Zellweger, part of the 2005 HIV prevention campaign of the Swiss federal health department. He`s shown smiling and making the V sign with his hand and the text "Don`t get semen or blood in your mouth" and "Penetrate only with condoms".

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