Maria Furtwängler

Maria Furtwängler

Furtwängler in 2012
Born (1966-09-13) 13 September 1966
Munich, West Germany
Occupation physician, actress
Spouse(s) Hubert Burda (m. 1991)
Children 2

Maria Furtwängler-Burda (born 13 September 1966) is a German physician and television actress.

Early life

Maria Furtwängler-Burda is a daughter of architect Bernhard Furtwängler and actress Kathrin Ackermann, great-niece and step-granddaughter of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, and granddaughter of politician Katharina von Kardorff-Oheimb. She has two older brothers, David and Felix. She was given her first movie role, for which she earned a bike, at the age of seven in Zum Abschied Chrysanthemen, produced by her uncle Florian Furtwängler. Her mother taught her acting and she later took acting classes in Germany and other countries.

After leaving secondary school, Maria Furtwängler-Burda studied medicine at the University of Montpellier, France, and graduated from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. Afterwards she trained and worked as a medical doctor.

In addition to her native German, she is fluent in French, English, and Italian.

Personal life

On 8 November 1991 Maria married billionaire publisher Hubert Burda (born 1940), the youngest son of publishers Franz Burda and Aenne Burda, and CEO of Hubert Burda Media, an international media group, which publishes more than 180 magazine titles, including many fashion magazines. Her father-in-law was a prominent publisher in Nazi Germany who benefited from "Aryanization" of Jewish property and developed his family's small printing business into a large media conglomerate.[1]

They have two children, Jakob (born 1990) and Elisabeth (born 1992).

Career

In the mid-1990s Furtwängler decided to pursue her television career. For more nearly twenty years she has been acting in German television series and productions such as the Tatort series, as a Hanover-based police detective Charlotte Lindholm since 2002, the successful television movies Die Flucht, and Die Schicksalsjahre and her currently published cinema production The weather inside – Das Wetter in geschlossenen Räumen.

For her work in Tatort and Die Flucht she was honored with Germany’s most important award in the field of acting. With the movie The weather inside she was honored with the award for best actress at the 2morrow festival in Moscow and is already nominated in the preselection of Deutscher Filmpreis (German film price). The film had his grand opening on 7 April 2016 at the German film festival in New York City.

Maria Furtwängler is also planning to become more active as a film producer.

Activism

In 2010 she founded the MALISAhome in the Philippines. She is Member of the board of trustees Hubert-Burda-Stiftung and became a “ONE”-ambassador for Women, Girls and Child Health. In 2015 she signed an open letter, which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the AU in South Africa respectively. There priorities will be set in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation.[1]

In November 2013, she met Eve Ensler in Berlin and got inspired by her to get more involved in ending violence against women and girls also in Germany. She is particularly interested in the role of the media in perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes. She has been inspired by the Geena Davis Institute and by the Women’s Media Center in the US.

On International Women’s Day 2016, she supported UN Women German National Committee’s call for a reform of the German legislation on sexual violence (asking for a law that is based on the “no means no” - consent principle, which is currently not the case in Germany). Also on International Women’s Day 2016, she co-authored an op-ed with the German Minister for family, older people, women and youth, Manuela Schwesig, highlighting the need for a stronger sexual violence law and for an end to stereotyping of women and men, particularly in the media.

Awards

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ Peter Köpf: Die Burdas. Europa Verlag Berlin, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-203-79145-5, p. 42.
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