Rita Lengyel

The love for acting, for writing and directing are awakened early in Rita Lengyel, already as a teenager she stands in front of the camera. Also with her step father, filmmaker Gábor Bódy, she gets first impressions from working on the set. In 1989 the acting talent of the then 16-year-old is discovered: Director Oliver Hirschbiegel casts her for a role in his film THE LOON and a year later she is working with Klaus Emmerich in his movie PIZZA COLONIA. The young actress takes acting lessons in Cologne and Los Angeles, acts in several TV films by renowned directors like DIE MANNS by Heinrich Breloer, THE DOUBLE by Ralf Huettner, ANYTHING BUT MURDER by Sigi Rothemund, BLOOD ON THE CRADLE by Markus Fischer or THE BEST PIECE by Oliver Schmitz. She receives leading roles in cinema productions like DOMENICA by Peter Kern, NADINE by Ecki Ziedrich or MORTAL BEAUTY by Markus Goller. In the cult cinemamovie BERLIN CALLING by Hannes Stoehr she plays alongside Paul Kalkbrenner the female lead. Later, she stars in the ARTE project EDWARD HOPPER - LE FILM playing the single main role and plays in the movie GLOBAL PLAYER, both films again by Hannes Stoehr.

Rita Lengyel was born in Düsseldorf into a patchwork family. The family moves to West Berlin and Rita lives between Cologne, Berlin and Budapest. Belonging to different cultures with many languages also shape her own cinematic works as her second passion becomes writing and directing. In 2003, she studies directing at the Film University HFF Potsdam-Babelsberg and closes her studies with the feature documentary MY HUNGARY IN BERLIN. For her film BERLIN BUDAPEST Rita Lengyel is awarded the DEFA Foundation prize among others.