Thorsten Grieser

To reconcile the artistically interesting with the economically possible, that is the challenge and every day anew the motivation for my work for FILMFEST MÜNCHEN and our Filmschoolfest, which gives me a lot of pleasure.

I grew up in Hamburg and Munich with two brothers. My parents had set aside half an hour of television per week for us, but of course three boys can't agree on a program in any case - and so it turned out to be one and a half hours. GUNSMOKE or BONANZA, gladly also MR. TERRIFIC, it became difficult however in weeks, where a WINNETOU was shown. The first film in the cinema that made a deep impression on me was THE JUNGLE BOOK. But already the second visit to the cinema almost spoiled my desire for this wonderful place - I lost my wallet with 12 marks pocket money in the cinema. A bitter loss, which could only be compensated for a little later.

After graduating from high school, while training as a publishing house clerk at Bertelsmann in Munich, money was tight, but the desire to go to the movies was still very strong. Together with friends, we soon discovered that at the legendary nightly double features at the Cinema in Nymphenburger Straße, you could mingle with the smokers with a cigarette during the break between the two films, and then simply watch the second film (even without a ticket). Once I even got a ticket for it as a birthday present, completely unnecessarily. But maybe that got me off the wrong track.

I went on to study history, literature, economics and business administration in Hamburg, Munich and Erlangen, and earned a doctorate in economic history at Humboldt University in Berlin. After a return to publishing and around 25 years of industrial experience in self-employment, everything was then in place for me to happily move into the field of cultural industries in 2021. As CFO, I am now responsible for the finances of the Internationale Münchner Filmwochen GmbH and try to provide the FILMFEST MÜNCHEN and the FILMSCHOOLFEST MUNICH and all the activities around the year that the creative team plans with the necessary financial underpinning.