Rüdiger Suchsland is a film critic and director. He studied history and philosophy in Munich. After graduating, he worked as a freelance journalist for various cultural editorial departments. Since 1998, he has worked mainly in the field of film criticism. As an author, he writes for the FAZ, film-dienst, Telepolis, Deutschlandfunk and various other national and regional publications. Since 1997 he has been an editor at artechock. In addition to all his reviews and in-depth interviews, he regularly publishes loose notes there with the irregular column “Cinema Moralia”, which combines current observations, short reviews, gossip, film politics and many indispensable tips into a text form that is free in every respect. From 1998 to 2004 he was a staff member of the Filmfest München and since 2002 at the Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg as well as at the “Festival des deutschen Films” in Ludwigshafen. From 2004-2008 and again since 2012, he has been a board member at the Association of German Film Critics.
Suchsland says about his work as a film critic: “Film criticism is of course subjective. But it should definitely be committed and always curious. Film criticism always keeps some distance, always identifies with cinema, but only to a limited extent with ‘the film industry’. A really good film critic is always also a social and cultural critic.”