About her
„I don’t think that everything happens for a reason, but that the lessons you learn dealing with things give them a sens, afterwards.“
Catherine Fuhg
Meet Catherine, the author, and director with loads of charm and a tiny touch of absurdity. Her motto: Ich bin ein Berliner!
The tiny redhead of Jewish descent has lived in Prague, Algier, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, Paris and Dresden. She is currently working in Dresden and Paris as an author but has previously turned an honest penny by working as a film editor, journalist, actress and even as a private detective in LA, of course! The only problem with the last job was that she got fired from it… After three days. She was too obvious!
If you ever meet Catherine in person, please do not offer her alcohol. After one beer, she starts speaking to the furniture, which can turn into a very uncomfortable situation for a shy chair!
Oh, and don’t try to tell her something funny in a quiet space, except you like all the attention suddenly switching to you!
Catherine is a published author, whose first comedic novel Ah si j’étais goy! has been published in France by Plon. She also writes scripts for television and film, and is currently working on her fifth novel.
Her writing is informed by her experiences as a mother, her Jewish heritage and her self-deprecating sense of humor.
She loves the play with words and the invention of stories and characters that make you laugh; for her, unconditional love is the most important to create a good character. She loves even their faults. Catherine prefers quiet and solitude when writing. As she likes to put it: “Writing very early in the morning is the most productive for me. I’m like a sponge; so later in the day, there are too many impressions interfering with the voices inside of the inspiration. In the morning I feel like a virgin. At my age, it’s not bad…” And then of course, she laughs loud.
Career
Literary writing and scriptwriting is just like writing music. To write a script feels like writing a score which someone else will then interpret in their own way. When writing a book, the music itself is already there, rhythm and melody of the words are all determined by the author.
Catherine started her approach to movies as an actress. She first studied at drama school in Paris. Unfortunately, after some experiences in theater, she realized that it was too difficult for her to present herself in castings and interviews. Out of this rather frustrating conclusion, the thought emerged that writing her own films and roles might be the perfect solution! As far as she remembered, she has always written.This was the start of her screenwriting and directing “project”.
After film school in Tel aviv, Catherine went on to work in multiple creative fields.
She started as an assistant director and a film editor in Tel Aviv and Los Angeles. The editing of full-length feature films was a great learning experience, that gave her the opportunity to develop her own style and skills in terms of storytelling. Editing to Catherine is a constructive process that harbors a lot of creative potential, it feels like “writing but with pictures instead of words”.
Her work as an actress was not completely lost. It gave her another perspective to the making of film and directing actors.
During her two years in the US, she also worked as a journalist for the weekly newspaper Israel Shelanu. It was her first experience as a “published writer”. After leaving Los Angeles, she let this field fallow before coming back to it years later.
After moving back to Paris and working as an editor for French TV, love brought her to Dresden, Germany, where she always feels home. For more than ten years, she’s been living and working in Dresden as an editor, director and screenwriter for commercials and eventually wrote and directed her first feature-length film: a mockumentary called DEKAdance – der Film. She had a stint as a ghostwriter (“I hate it! I can’t write technically!”) while at the same time publishing her first novel Ah sie j’étais goy! Currently, she is working on her fifth book and her second feature-length film about women and laughter.
Teaching
Having published and directed herself, Catherine knows the ins and outs of the current media market. She shares her knowledge and experience with young aspiring writers in workshops and lectures. She has conducted screenwriting, directing and media workshops in Germany, Poland, Czech republic and France.